


To Build A Home

by HarveyDangerfield, thetheotheatre



Series: Apocalypse Husbands [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Brain Damage, Developing Relationship, Injury Recovery, M/M, Pining, Post-Apocalypse, Pseudo-Incest, Sibling Incest, Touch-Starved, Underage Drinking, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27655811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyDangerfield/pseuds/HarveyDangerfield, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetheotheatre/pseuds/thetheotheatre
Summary: A collection of scenes following the various times and ways that Five told Diego he loved him, as they learned how to survive together in a wasteland built for two, and the time that Diego finally said it back.Written as a prequel for "The Last Two People Left on Earth" but can be read as a standalone
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Diego Hargreeves
Series: Apocalypse Husbands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022158
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello there! all new readers, and those coming to this one after reading Last Two! for those who find this fic first, feel free to read that one while you wait for chapters to be posted on this one, there's going to be a total of six chapters posted in this series, unless some inspiration strikes and we add more along the way

_Out in the garden where we planted the seeds, there is a tree as old as me. Branches were sewn by the color of green, ground had arose and passed it's knees._

_By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top. I climbed the tree to see the world._

_When the gusts came around to blow me down, I held on as tightly as you held onto me, I held on as tightly as you held onto me_

Despair, Five has found, is the one thing he could not tolerate. 

Growing up under the thumb of Reginald Hargreeves has made him unusual, compared to most children his age-- not even taking into account his superhuman abilities. His tolerance for things like pain, anger, physical abuse, guilt and shame are far higher than others of his age group. While most kids at 13 have to deal with their first middle school dances, acne, schoolyard crushes and embarrassing parents, Five has found himself combating the most difficult enemy he'd ever had to face: despair. 

Despair made him want to curl up and die under the weight of the smog blanketing the land. Despair made him want to, for the first time in his life, _give up_. The suffocating presence of heavy black smoke gives him a feeling of being trapped in hell, the entire earth boiling hot under the layer of debris and dust blocking out the sun. The only light comes from the myriad fires that reflect orange and hot over the mottled grey sky overhead-- even night offers no reprieve from the oppressive heat. 

But the worst of it was finding his family in the state he did. He didn't even recognize them at first when he found the bodies, it wasn't until he discovered their faded tattooed wrists, matching his own, still fresh and crisp and black, that he put together the pieces. This was his family, and whatever had caused the apocalypse, not even they were able to prevent. Not that they didn't try-- Luther himself clutched the bloodied remains of a single glass eye.  
  
Part of his family was missing, however. He couldn't find Vanya, Ben or Diego, he managed to only uncover and lay out in a line Luther, Allison and Klaus. He can only assume that they split up to try and save the world, and failed despite their best efforts. He might never find the bodies of the rest of his siblings.

It isn't _fair_. He should have been there to help them save the world. Maybe they failed because he wasn't there, maybe he would have been crucial to their survival. He vows as he works under the glaring heat of the fires to dig three shallow graves, to make it his personal mission to return home at any cost, no matter how long it took for him to figure out how. His family needed him, they deserved to have him there watching their backs. Or at the very least, he deserved to die with them. 

The first and second day of Five's new, awful life in this wasteland are spent digging those graves. He didn't have a shovel, so he could only use his hands to till the hard earth revealed between the cracked and fractured chunks of asphalt roads that once made up the street outside his childhood home. Occasionally he would find a piece of metal that he could reinforce the edge of with a scrap of cloth to keep from cutting his hands too badly, but after one too many slices to his sensitive palms he decides to just use his fingers to dig at the ground until he's moved enough earth that he can scoop it out and add it to the pile.

On the third day, he starts to sift through the rubble of his family home in search of anything he can use. He finds the remains of Ben's statue, toppled over and broken to pieces in the remnants of the courtyard, and he cries.  
  
He finds a mostly undamaged wagon from what must have been Luther's room, judging by the position, as well as a few cans of food from the kitchen, some scraps of cloth he fashions into a head and face covering to protect him from the heat and wind, and a slightly bent but still functional kitchen knife and pair of scissors, all of which he puts in his wagon. Every functional object is useful at this point, anything he can cling to to feel even a shred of normalcy. 

It's the fourth day that the trajectory of his entire experience in the wasteland changes. He uncovers a broken and nearly sideways doorway that he actually manages to pull open, to a section of the house that was caved in, but freestanding moreso than any other part of the house. It crumbles and shifts overhead dangerously, so he keeps his steps light to avoid setting off as many sound vibrations as possible as he picks through the rubble. He finds a canteen and a lighter, a metal urn and a wooden bowl, all of which he puts into his backpack, but as he ducks under a half-collapsed column to round a corner, he draws up short. 

There's another body, lying face down on the dusty ground, sprawled out like a puppet. Dressed all in black, with a tacky puddle spread out around their head, Five knows who it is even before he approaches the body and kneels beside it to see his face. This was the body he was most dreading finding, and the one he'd counted himself lucky for not stumbling across. Half buried under rubble with the right side of his head caved in from a bloody chunk of the ceiling that lays nearby Five forces himself to look at Diego's face, forces himself to contend with the image of his brother lying dead under him. He files it away along with the rest as a grisly reminder of exactly what's at stake.  
  
He tries not to think about what Diego meant to him, compared to the rest of his siblings, as he starts carefully pulling rubble off his body, doing his best not to unseat the delicate balancing act that this ruined but still-standing part of the house is maintaining. He tries not to think about the nights they would share, knees to knees, pressed together under the bed sheets swapping secrets and kisses. He tries not to think about the fact that he'll almost definitely never again be able to share that moment with Diego. 

There's an unsteady rumble that makes him pause in his work, as dust trembles down from the ceiling. He holds his breath, looking up for any sign of instability-- and then he hears another sound. This one is softer, organic, the exhaling of a quiet groan that makes his body go cold. He looks down in time to see one of Diego's fingers move. He's still _alive_. 

The house shudders again, and Five wastes no time. He grabs Diego by the shoulders and jumps him back out to the line of graves just as that section of the house caves in. He doesn't worry for a moment about what other treasures he might have been able to uncover in that section of the house, he doesn't even think about it for a second as he rolls Diego over onto his back and immediately takes stock of his injuries. If he's going to survive, Five's going to have to work fast. It's already been four days.  
  
It's a miracle that Diego's even alive, a barely-there but steady pulse beating within his veins, pumping what blood remains. He doesn't feel alive, though. He doesn't feel anything, not the way the right side of his head is caved in, or how all that remains of one eye is a deep and bloody hole where it had once sat, or the way his left leg is twisted unnaturally outwards. The pain had dissipated, slowly replaced with a dull ache that settles deep in Diego's bones, weighing him down even more than the remnants of his childhood home crushing him to near-death. 

He doesn't realize he's been moved, but behind the eyelid of the eye that remains, there's a change in light. It's suddenly brighter and the muscles in his face involuntarily twitch, squinting to accommodate the change. He can't open his eyes, can't even find it within his brain to try, too weak to do anything but sink into the dirt beneath his body. 

Diego needs a surgeon, but instead, all he gets are the shaking hands of his scared thirteen-year-old brother. Five works with what he has - a lighter to cauterize the smaller wounds and a torn and stained bedsheet to make bandages out of, both to wrap his bleeding head and tie a split to his broken leg made of cracked plywood. He risks leaving Diego's side for a few moments, just to check his surroundings again, this time for anything at all that could aid in Diego's survival. In a pile of rubble not too far from where he'd found the older man, he finds a half-finished embroidery project, the needle still dangling from it, attached with a black thread. He takes the entire thing, but doesn't stick around to look for its maker. He can't afford to spend another second away from Diego and after all the heartbreak he's already endured, he doesn't want to see what remains of Grace.  
  
As he carefully undoes the stitching from the taut fabric, enough to salvage a piece of thread long enough to patch Diego up, he can't help but wonder what his brother would think of him destroying something of Mom's to save him. They'd always been close, Diego and Grace, and Five decides it's fitting that even though she's still buried beneath the ruins of the house, she somehow still aids in saving Diego's life.

Five doesn't sleep that night, and as the sun rises over the smoky wasteland, he watches Diego, the rise and fall of his chest, the subtle twitches in the half of his face that isn't wrapped in cloth. He gives him sips of water from his canteen every few hours, wiping his mouth afterwards with a section of the bedsheet. He falls into the same routine as the days begin to blur together - scavenging the remains of the academy during the day, tending to Diego's wounds with whatever he finds, watching him like a hawk at night, as if he's afraid that despite all his efforts, Diego will slip from him in his sleep and he'll be digging another grave.  
  
Counting the hours as they pass like clockwork, Five's body permanently attuned to the passing of time because of his training, he checks Diego at least twice per, just searching for a pulse, for breath, for signs of life. Every moment that passes, he worries that Diego has slipped away, and sometimes he feels it so strongly that he has to scramble back from whatever he was doing just to check him again to make sure. If he's going to die, he'd like it to be while Five is right there, so he doesn't die alone. 

On the sixth day, Five's insides have started gnawing themselves to pieces. He'd already eaten the couple cans of food he managed to salvage, and even managed to mush up some baked beans to feed to Diego, even if the process is less than pleasant. He had to smush them up and then dig his fingers to the back of Diego's throat to get him to swallow a fraction of a mouthful. It's an exhausting process for them both, Diego gags and chokes and sometimes spits it back up and Five has to push it back down again to get him to swallow, and even after an hour of effort he eats less than half a can of beans. 

But without the easy food source at hand, Five's going to have to resort to other methods. There has been a bit of wildlife scurrying around, and while he's never had to hunt before, it couldn't be that hard, could it? He sets up a roach trap, laying pieces of wood leading up to the sides of a box and lays the last peach from one of the cans inside to attract them. It works like a charm, they scurry up the wood in search of the smell, and then fall into the box, the sides too slick for them to crawl back out. Within an afternoon, there's more than twenty of them inside, and Five jabs them all onto a long stick like a shish kebab, and roasts them over a fire.  
  
They smell awful, and taste worse, and even 25 of the little things is barely a morsel, especially split in half between himself and Diego. He realizes then that food is going to be a significant problem, and should make up the majority of his time spent during the day. He's going to need more traps.  
  
It doesn't take long for the rats to appear, scurrying from their hiding places beneath the rubble in search of food. The first one that Five catches is small and when he kills it, he watches the life drain from it's eyes and he almost feels bad. That feeling is gone by the time he's killed his second one. They're a step up from the roaches, but they fill him up better and they don't get stuck between his teeth. He can't be picky anymore, but he'd do anything for a substantial meal, not just for his own sake, but for Diego's. The man is already weak enough, a diet of roaches and rats isn't doing much to help him.

Despite that, Diego opens his eyes for the first time on the ninth day, almost a week after Five found him. It's barely noticeable, his remaining eye squinting so hard as it adjusts to the light and atmosphere, but Five has become finely attuned to every detail about Diego - how his breath changes when he falls into a deeper sleep, how his eyelids twitch as the sun rises, how his fingers twitch whenever a breeze passes through their lean-to. He notices it an instant, moving away from the fire he'd been tending to and towards the man's side, but when he breathes out his name, like a prayer falling off his tongue, Diego's heavy eyelid just falls shut once more. 

Five knows his road to recovery won't be an easy one and even though watching Diego open his eye is progress, it hits him that Diego will never go back to normal. There is no _normal_ anymore. They have to adapt and overcome, despite anything that this wasteland throws at them. It's hard to wrap around his head around, but as he huddles next to Diego's body for warmth that night, he slips his hand between his brother's, and feels the pin-prick of tears behind his tightly shut eyes when he swears he feels a weak squeeze back.  
  
There's nothing glamorous about the process of taking care of Diego, and in fact Five knows that if his brother was aware of all the grisly details of what goes into taking care of him, he would prefer it if Five just let him die. After the first few days Five just wrapped his lower half in a bed sheet for modesty's sake, deciding to wash and save his pants for whenever Diego was well enough to wear them again without soiling himself. Five doesn't hold it against him, it's just part of being alive. 

With the rest of their family buried, Five sets to making a shelter for himself and Diego, to shield them from the heat reflected down by the greasy black clouds. Most of the fires have died down around them by the twentieth day, so the heat lets up somewhat but without the fires eating up all the oxygen, the wind starts-- and the wind really is killer. It whips up sand and dust and scraps of paper. He collects as much paper as he can for firestarters, and sets up a barrel to act as a firepit. 

Honestly, he's lucky he grew up the way he did. If Reginald hadn't been his father, he has no doubt that he wouldn't be able to survive this. He was taught to be resourceful and clever, to protect himself, to _survive_. He builds a more substantial shelter against the wind, something with a roof and a door, shutters made of sticks he twined together that he can roll up and tie in place, or let fall to cover the windows in a sheet to block out the wind. It's not a pretty hut, but it protects them from the elements.  
  
He considered moving on, finding a new place to live, but he doesn't want to take Diego away from their home. He doesn't know if he's even in any condition to travel. But as the weeks stretch on into two months, he's confident enough at least that Diego isn't going to die in his sleep. He's been opening his eyes more frequently, but he doesn't seem at all aware of his surroundings, he doesn't even look at Five if he's sitting right beside him. He just stares vacantly up at the tin roof of their shack. His head is healed up, no longer bloody, but his eye socket is empty. Whatever trauma he endured from that side of his head getting smashed, the eye must have just popped and leaked out of his skull. Five decides to take the liberty of sewing his eyelid shut while Diego is still like this, unaware and vacant, to stave off infection. Diego barely flinches, even when the needle is in his line of sight-- a surefire sign that he's not present. 

Five refuses to consider the idea that he might never be again. He knows his brother. He knows he's a fighter.  
  
As the months pass, Diego slowly starts to become aware of his surroundings. It doesn't happen all at once, but with each passing day, he notices something he hadn't the day before. He sees time pass through a crack in the ceiling, and although he doesn't understand what it means, he knows the light that creeps through the gap brings warmth. He hears rattling when it's cold, and although he doesn't realize it's the shutters banging against their shelter in the wind, he associates it with the feeling of a heavier sheet laid across his body. At least once a day, he feels a pair of hands on him, cold fingers gripping his chin and forcing his mouth open as something warm is shoved down his throat until the ache in his stomach disappears. 

Five has stopped counting the days. Dwelling won't do him any good, he realizes after a few months, and with Diego's health slowly but surely on the rise, he doesn't need to. He takes each day as they come and with it, each small victory that Diego achieves. 

It's raining the morning when Diego first seems to acknowledge him. Five doesn't want to risk leaving, not when he sees the rain and soot pollute the streets, leaving behind a dark sludge in their trail. So, he sits beside Diego, tending to the fire, clipping his own nails with a pair of scissors when he hears a sound from behind him. It isn't unusual for Diego to make a sound, deep groans from the back of his throat slip from his closed mouth, and Five associates different ones with different meanings, but as Five turns around to see what caused it, he meets Diego's eye.  
  
It's the first sign that Diego is present at all, and Five could cry tears of joy, but his expression remains calm as he studies his brother. He reaches for his hand and beneath his own, Diego's twitches. When the rain finally lets up and Five ventures outside, he allows himself a happy moment. They're few and far between these days, but seeing a glimmer of life in Diego's eyes is the sweetest breath of air that Five's ever taken in.  
  
The only way Five knows how to track the time now is with the growth of their hair. Their father would have their hair cut every two months or so to keep it from becoming unruly and unseemly, so every time his hair grows long enough to hang over his eyes he knows about two months have passed. Which means, as he hacks off part of his bangs with scissors, that this haircut marks about half a year since his arrival in the wasteland, and his discovery of Diego. 

While his recovery has been slow, Five has been no less hopeful. Every milestone Diego passes is a step in the right direction, and worthy of celebration. Six months in and he's actually starting to lazily chew food on his own when Five gets a mouthful into him. He doesn't have to shove it to the back of his throat anymore and rely on his swallow reflex. Which also means he should be getting more substantial meals now that Five doesn't have to worry about him choking on solid food. He's been fairly wasting away as it is, losing weight by the pound as his body fails to find the nutrients it needs to maintain his impressive musculature, and downsizes to compensate. 

Five embarks further and further from their home whenever he's sure Diego is in a deep sleep. He takes his wagon and even finds a bicycle that he's able to repair enough to operate, and pedals at least a mile from their shack, the farthest out he's ever been before. There's not much new to see, but it does give him new spaces to scavenge, and he brings home a haul of canned foods, bottled water and whatever bottles of medicine and other first aid supplies he could find.  
  
The second time he goes out, he finds a dog. It's mangey and thin, and though guilt wracks Five for it, he beckons the dog over with a bit of hotdog from a can he opens on the spot, and proceeds to choke the dog to death. It's gruesome, but it's also a promise of the most concrete meal either he or Diego will have had in months, and when he roasts it over the barrel fire back home, the sensation of being able to sink his teeth into something substantial enough to take a _bite_ out of is euphoric.  
  
As the days begin to grow shorter, Diego continues to improve. He can sit up without support, even if it takes him a little bit of help to actually make it upright. He can move his fingers enough to grip the bowl of food that's passed to him every night, but getting the food into his mouth still proves to be a challenge with trembling hands and poor depth perception. Five never once laughs, just wipes the corner of his lips and chin with a piece of cloth and guides the spoon into his mouth before he goes back to eating his own food. 

Mentally, he makes strides, too, but communicating isn't easy. Diego's brain is scrambled and even though the simple thoughts are in his head - food, water, bathroom - he can't get them out. His speech is reduced to a series of non-verbal noises and cues that Five has to decipher, and as watches the cogs turn in Diego's brain, overworking themselves, he can practically see the thick, black smoke pouring from his ears. 

Their birthday passes without so much as a mention. Neither of them know it, but it happens on a clear and sunny day. Five shoots a low-flying goose out of the sky with a slingshot made from some branches, a rubber band and a rock. It doesn't feed them as well as the dog did, but it's tastier and it keeps their bellies full. Later that night, Diego smiles at Five for the first time. It's hardly a true smile, more of a grimace that tugs one corner of Diego's mouth up, but it's the most emotion he's seen on the man's face. 

But not every day is a good day. Sometimes Diego wakes in a panic, thrashing in his makeshift bed, trying to move limbs that he still doesn't have great control over, and when Five finally calms him down, the look in his eyes is vacant, like he doesn't recognize him, like he isn't the brother he knows. Diego gets better, but sometimes it feels like for every step forward he makes, someone is trying to pull him back.  
  
Sometimes in the middle of the night, after Five has wrestled Diego back into stillness by force, holding him down until he tires himself out, Five wishes very privately that Diego would die. It isn't that he doesn't want to take care of him, in fact looking after Diego is the one thing that gives his life purpose and meaning-- but Five is just one boy wrestling an adult man who should have the strength to buck him off a hundred times over, who can't even coordinate his limbs enough to get his hand around Five's arm. A man who was so strong when Five found him, thick with muscle and sinew, reduced to this. Five is overwhelmed with the thought of what must be going through Diego's head, and his heart breaks for him every time he makes those frightened wheezing noises. Sometimes he thinks it would be more merciful if he died. 

But he would never dream of putting him out of his misery. For all that Five thinks this is humiliating for his brother, he clings desperately to the sense of routine and normalcy that his presence brings. Without Diego to anchor him to this spot just a few hundred feet from the home they grew up in, he doesn't know where he would go or what he would do with himself. Diego might be little more than an empty man, but he's Five's rock. Without him, Five would be the last person left on earth.

He'd given up talking to Diego months ago, with any regularity. After the first few weeks of talking to him were met with nothing but blank and vacant stares, he'd chosen to save his breath and his energy. But now that Diego is starting to be more lucid, he decides to start talking to him again. His voice is hoarse and dry from months and months of disuse, but as they pass the eight month mark he thinks it's time for him to start trying to engage Diego in conversation. Even if his brother isn't capable of talking back at first, kickstarting his brain with cognitive processes can't hurt.  
  
So he tells him stories. Stories about their family, about their home. He tells them stories about some of Reginald's worst punishments and their strongest moments as siblings. He tells Diego about what he was thinking when he ran, why he decided to go and how sorry he was for not making it back. He makes promises he intends to keep, promises that he'll go home and prevent all of this from ever happening, promises that the first moment he's back, he'll crawl back into bed with Diego and hug him so hard from behind he can't breathe. It's mostly like talking to a brick wall, Diego never responds or even seems to register what he's saying at all, but it's still worth it to try.  
  
Most of the words just go in one ear and out the other, Diego's brain fighting hard to put the words into a context that he can understand, but even though he only hears a garbled translation of what the boy is actually saying, he finds comfort in the sound of his voice. He'd been quiet for so long, only the sounds of the wasteland to occupy his mind, that hearing something so fresh was something Diego hadn't realized he'd craved. 

Eventually, as Five continues to talk to him every night, Diego understands more and more of what he's saying. He knows what home is, the place he grew up, nothing more than crumpled ruins behind them. He knows what sorry means, an apology that spills from Five's lips more often than any other word he says. He knows _Diego_ \- a word that Five attributes to him, and even though his self-awareness is a topic that still confuses him, when Five whispers the name as he settles into bed with him every night, Diego knows it belongs to him. 

Even though the thoughts are there, Diego still has a hard time communicating them. Grunts slowly turn into more substantial sounds, hard consonants that Five can apply meaning to. He asks Diego if he's cold one night and instead of shaking his head, he watches him sputter out a series of n sounds and he knows he's trying to say "no." He never pushes Diego to speak, not when he sees the clear frustration on the other man's face whenever the words are on his tongue, but they won't come out. Five can't imagine what it must be like. 

A venture further from their home-base and into the ruins of the city brings Five back with a handful of books. They're not the first ones he's found, but they are the first ones he picks up without the intent of ripping up and using as a fire starter. He reads them to Diego as he sits beside him, letting him look at the pictures and when Five asks him questions, Diego is cognizant enough to point at the pictures, like a child learning how to read for the first time.   
  
Five comes home late one day, nine months into their new life, the sun already setting below the horizon. He went too far, lost his bearings, had to force himself to remain calm as he retraced his steps until he finally made it home. He finds Diego sitting up, one of the books sitting in his lap, a small cut on Diego's cheek and Five realizes he'd retrieved it from the pile in the opposite corner of the shack himself and had fallen in the process. He wants to scold him, but Diego is looking at him with a concerned expression and when Five looks down at the open book, Diego's finger is resting over picture of a girl crying, and it suddenly clicks that Diego had been worried about him. 

So Five apologizes, a 'sorry' that makes his lower lip tremble as he cleans up the cut on Diego's cheek as he silently vows not to let that happen again and promises to get Diego practice on his feet tomorrow, just so he won't hurt himself again.  
  
Five feels like a monster for not thinking about getting Diego mobile earlier, especially when after they start trying, Diego can't even support his weight at first. Five curses himself for not keeping his brother mobile through this harrowing recovery process, because nine months in now, his muscles are all so atrophied that just getting his feet under him proves to be a struggle. And it's worse still because not only is Five angry with himself for not thinking ahead-- but Diego himself seems to be frustrated by his inability to get standing. 

So they start smaller. It takes some doing, to figure out how to communicate with Diego, who gets overwhelmed by sentences more than a few words long at this point, but after a little trial and error, Five manages to work out a daily exercise routine to do with his brother, and some exercises he can do on his own. He gets Diego to push his feet against Five's hands, to try and straighten out his knees, and he helps him work through the process of sitting up and laying down several times per day. He installs a bar in the wall that Diego can use to do laying pull-ups, which he'll frequently find him doing on his own when Five is gone, using the bar to sit up and lay back down on his own as well. 

The strides are small, but Diego is determined. Five even comes home one day to find that Diego had managed to hook his knees over the bar, and was using it to do shaky, unsteady hip flexes. He seemed embarrassed to be caught, and so Five gave him the space to practice on his own.  
  
Their home expands, as Diego's strength slowly increases. Five builds them a tall fence that protects them from weather and wildlife, and finds a litter of somewhat sickly kittens that he brings home with the intent to eventually breed as a renewable food source. Their book collection grows, and Five adds extensions onto their little shack, finally giving Diego his own separated bedroom with a door that can close, hoping to afford him some privacy-- but Diego only seems distressed by the idea of them sleeping separately, and so Five sleeps beside him anyway. Still, it's nice to have a bedroom door. Some nights when the wind is mild and the sky is clear enough to see a couple stars through the open window, it's easy to forget they're alone in the world together.  
  
The workouts give Diego a sense of purpose, something useful to do while Five goes out during the day. He exerts himself more than he should some days, but he quickly learns that he hates feeling weak, and not being to stand on his own two legs is the root of the problem. He gets there - trembling, unsteady legs finally supporting his weight and on a sunny day with Five's hands hovering right in front of his own, he takes his first steps that don't end with him falling flat on his face. 

His head has completely healed, just a dent where his skull had caved in and a patched-up hole where his right eye should be. He sees himself for the first time in a broken mirror that Five hangs in the newly built bathroom of their home. Calling it a bathroom is generous, just a bucket that needs to be emptied every week, a jug of clean water, and a plethora of first aid supplies tucked away in a cardboard box, but Diego stands in front of the chipped mirror, staring at the face looking back at him. He doesn't recognize himself and as his left eye burns and a tear slides down his cheek, he wipes it away with a shaking hand and tucks this strange feeling away.

He grows to appreciate his independence, but every night without fail, he climbs into bed with Five. It's an unspoken bond between the two of them, the second bedroom that Five builds goes untouched by them, but the cats make their home there. Even though Five is gone by the time Diego wakes up each morning, they still both prefer it this way. 

Diego's comprehension grows with his strength. Five starts to leave notes on scrap pieces of paper, hastily drawn pictures and simple two word phrases - a slingshot to indicate that Five had gone out hunting, water scribbled in red ink, a reminder that Diego should check the collection bucket while Five is gone. Sometimes, he tries to leave something in response, but those wires that form words are still being repaired in his brain, and his coordination still isn't great.  
  
He gets frustrated easily as the thoughts swirl around his head, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out but a stammering mess of consonants and vowels. It's unfair, Five thinks, that even now, Diego is still plagued by a stutter. He tries to be as patient with him as Grace was once, attempting to coax simple words from him as he continues to read to him every night, but more often than not, it ends with Diego getting upset and Five kicking himself for pushing him too hard. 

Diego practices when Five isn't home, feeling the words on his tongue, repeating them in his head a multitude of times before he finally tries for them out loud. He unclenches his jaw, a repetitive "d" sound falling from his lips until his mouth forms the following vowels, and a roughly strewn together version of his own name falls from his lips. Diego decides to keep that little victory to himself, at least until he can say it, or _anything_ , more confidently, something to prove his worth to the boy who's done so much for him.  
  
There's a lot of things that mark their first year together. 

Another round of haircuts, for one thing. Five keeps Diego's hair and beard trimmed as well (he's still not very good at it, but neither of them are about to enter any beauty contests anyway) which is a routine he's come to sincerely enjoy, especially now that Diego can sit up for them and he doesn't have to roll him around to get at the sides and back of his head. Even the process of brushing all the hair off of Diego's naked back afterwards feels like a bit of intimacy Five lost. He'd never been a deeply physically affectionate person with his siblings, but after a year with very little touch whatsoever, anything feels like an oasis in a desert. 

Five grew a whole inch, something he documented tirelessly on one of the planks of wood that now makes up their fence, using a piece of charcoal. He was officially 5'4, something he was very proud of considering how little nutrition both he and Diego had access to. He still didn't have any hair on his chest, but he was only 14. He still had time. 

Diego could officially walk all the way around the outside of their fenced-in little compound without assistance and make it back inside before he was too tired to continue. It didn't seem like much, but for a man Five found half dead with his head smashed in, walking unsupported for a few minutes at a time was a massive accomplishment. It would still be a while before he was back up to full strength, but as it was his body had already been redeveloping some of that muscle tone he'd one had with his frequent exercise. 

He's been improving in other ways, too. Five brings him little puzzle games he finds out in the wilds, things to improve his cognitive understanding and hand-eye coordination, both of which have taken serious blows since his head injury. Five wonders if they would have any effect on his abilities in the future, but he hasn't even begun to think about cracking open _that_ can of worms.  
  
The first sign that he gets that something is... _wrong_ with Diego, is the first time he ever teleports in front of his brother. He hadn't thought about it at the time, but looking back on it in the future he couldn't imagine the kind of alarm Diego must have felt, the first time he watched Five disappear from their shack in a flash of blue light. He'd had to make a very quick jump when he heard the sound of hooves on broken pavement, something that happened very rarely, and the importance of catching an animal could never be understated. It happened to be a goat, and Five was able to wrangle it to the ground and drag it back to their compound, where they could begin nurturing it and actually have access to thinks like milk and butter and cheese-- but upon his return to their fenced in area he found Diego on his knees in the middle of the shack _wailing_. It was a harrowing experience. Five decided he wouldn't use his powers again where Diego could see.  
  
Although Diego had a better grip on his comprehension skills than he did a few months ago, nothing could have prepared him for the moment that Five suddenly disappeared right in front of his eyes. His brain can't process what happened and in that moment, Diego thinks he must be going crazy, that he's made up everything, that the boy who'd been taking care of him had just been a figment of his imagination and he's laying in a hospital bed somewhere in a coma. It's the most complex idea his mind has created since it had been rearranged, but it's the only logical answer he can come up with. 

But Five returns, small hands grabbing his trembling shoulders, grounding him, and Diego never sees him disappear like that again. He convinces himself that he imagined it, but he never forgets it. 

After that, Diego realizes just how little he actually knows. He knows his name, only because Five repeats it like a mantra. He knows his face, only because he stares at it in the broken mirror when he uses the bathroom. He knows that this shack is his home and anything behind the hand-built fence is dangerous territory that he's not allowed to venture into and doesn't question why, but Diego feels like something is missing, like there are pieces of him out there in the rubble that he needs to find. While Five goes out to search, Diego remains behind the safety of their wooden fence.   
  
It isn't until they're sharing together one night, a hearty stew made from a can of beans and one of their cats, which Diego finds hard to swallow with one of the kittens sitting across from him, that he realizes he doesn't know Five's name. He's never heard him say it and Diego doesn't know how to ask. He abandons his meal for a brief moment, staring at the boy so hard that Five can practically feel his eyes drilling holes into him. It's different from how Diego normally looks at him, dripping with inquisition and confusion, and Diego almost looks like he could say something, but he tucks back into his food instead, wiping at his face with the back of his hand when his fork misses his mouth.  
  
The look Diego gave him in that moment lingers in Five's head for days. It was such a pointed and intense look, but it was broken too quickly for him to ask what was going on in Diego's head. He knows his brother wouldn't have the ability to articulate his thought anyway, whatever it might be, and he wouldn't want to frustrate him by forcing him to try. 

As the anniversary of their first year together comes and goes quietly, the only thing Five is able to uncover to celebrate is an old bottle of champagne, and as it turns out, he doesn't actually much like champagne, but they still share sips from the bottle nevertheless. Five lays leaned back against the wall on the mountain of pillows he'd either scavenged or constructed himself, side by side with his brother on the bed as they pass the bottle back and forth, and he reflects back on the last year they'd shared together. 

It isn't that he's completely given up on his goal to get back home and prevent all of this from ever happening. But it isn't like he's had a wealth of free time. Almost all of his time has been spent scavenging just for them to stay alive, and after a year they're only just barely approaching a level Five could comfortably call self-sustaining. He'd figured out how to grow tomatoes, beans and potatoes, much of which goes to their goat (he named Sally) to give her a healthy enough diet to give them milk and cheese in turn. They finally have some self-sustaining food sources, as the kittens reach breeding age and start to have litters of their own, and though sometimes Five has no choice but to feed them one of their own when food gets scarce, they're finally starting to level out.  
  
The winter was mild, because of the thick blanket of ash and debris that still covered much of the earth from whatever event had caused the apocalypse in the first place, so there wasn't any snow or even much rain, but there was a great deal of fog that made going out often dangerous, but it just meant he had more time to spend with Diego, helping him with his reading, his pronunciation and fitness. It's been an altogether rewarding year spent together, and Five will finally be able to move forward with his math in earnest to figure out how to make it home, knowing he'll have Diego as company the whole time. 

"You know, we don't have to stay here forever," Five says conversationally, fully aware Diego isn't going to be able to respond, and that he might not even try. "After you get all your strength back, we could start traveling together. Get you outside the fence. The farthest I've gone is about five miles out, for all we know there might be communities of survivors out there somewhere. It'd be nice not to live alone, just the two of us. Well... three, if you count Sally. Seventeen if you count all the cats." He reaches over to take the bottle from Diego again, and knocks it back for a drink and a grimace, before handing it back over to his brother. He sighs, letting his head fall back against the pillows, talking just to fill the silence and engage Diego's mind. "It's been an okay year, though. I think I'm 14 now? And you're... 31, I think. I've liked living here with you. If it wasn't for... you know, everything else, I think I would love it. The world sucks right now, but even though it sucks, I've still had a good year. I think that's all you."  
  
He looks over at Diego, at the left side of his face, and in the candle light from this angle, it's easy to fool himself into thinking that his brother is exactly the same as he's always been, but when Diego turns his head to look back at him, the hollow of his dented skull catches the shadows like a pit that makes Five sad to see. He sighs. 

"I know I don't say it often enough," Five mutters, and lets his head fall sideways to rest against Diego's shoulder, in a rare moment of physical affection. "I know I never did, but that's a shitty excuse. The only reason this year hasn't made me want to die is because of how much I love you. You make me want to survive."  
  
Diego also doesn’t like the champagne very much, doesn’t like the way it burns his throat and the way it makes his head ache, but he continues to take the bottle every time it’s passed to him. His hands are steadier than they ever had been and bringing the rim of the bottle to his mouth isn’t a challenge anymore. It’s these victories Diego knows he should be celebrating - Five does, rewarding him with a rare smile that he finds comfort him - but it’s hard for him as he rebuilds his life from the ground up, replacing old memories that were lost to the ruins with new ones he makes with Five. 

But Five talks like he’s known Diego his whole life. He always says he’s sorry for leaving, always talks about the day he’ll go back and things will be different, and it just makes Diego feel worse because he doesn’t understand any of it. He doesn’t _know_ the boy sitting beside him, but he hangs off of every word like it’s the truth, never questioning him. He isn’t even sure if Diego is his real name, or if he’s just as nameless as his companion and caretaker. 

These words that Five says now hang thick in the air, almost suffocating Diego as his brain finally processes them. He had a better grasp on complex ideas, love being a common theme in some of the books that Five has collected throughout the year, but it’s an emotion that he still personally isn’t familiar with. He feels a sense of protection towards Five, he trusts him more than anyone, and when they lie next to one another, he’s filled with a warmth he’s never felt before. He doesn’t know if he can say those words back if he doesn’t even know who Five is. 

Maybe it’s months of work finally paying off, or maybe it’s the alcohol, but as Diego tilts his head down to look at Five, his mouth opens without resistance. “I- I don’t—“ He begins, his voice low and rough from a full year of disuse, but he forces the words out, picturing exactly what to say in his mind before the syllables roll of his tongue. “—know your n-n-name.”  
  
There are no words in any human language to describe the feeling that overtakes Five, when he hears those words. 

The feeling is too big to live inside his body, and so a gust of painful breath leaves him all at once, as if his body is trying desperately to regulate the pure agony that fills every cell and capillary at once. It hurts too bad to withstand, he starts panting out of sheet panic as he sits up on the bed and turns to face his brother. 

He has to remain analytical to survive the apocalyptic tidal wave of despair that threatens to drown him. He'd survived the first one when he arrived, he could survive this one, too. He thinks back to lessons their father had taught them, anatomy and understanding the human body down to the cellular level. 

The right frontal lobe in the human brain functions to control the left side of the body, sequencing complex actions like putting on a pair of pants or writing your name, speech and language recognition, attention and concentration, reasoning and judgement, organization and planning, problem-solving, emotional regulation and the ability to read the moods of others, expression of personality, motivation and evaluation of risk-cost analysis, impulse control, and most importantly and pertinently, working memory. 

Five's entire body feels cold as he realizes that through this entire last year he'd spent taking care of his brother, the man had spent every day wondering who he even _was_. He barely manages to keep from breaking down in front of Diego now, holding himself together only for the other man's sake. If he breaks down now, all he'll do is teach Diego that he can't struggle in front of him, and so next time he has some kind of break through, he'll keep it to himself. Five has to reward him for making the effort to speak, even if every word felt like a dagger to the heart. 

He clears his throat and says in a voice clear from tremor despite the anguish clawing up the back of his throat, "My name is Five."  
  
The look that flashes across Five’s face is one that Diego doesn’t recognize, an expression that he’s never seen the boy make, but it’s gone before Diego even has a chance to try and figure it out, replaced with a neutral look that doesn’t match the edge in Five’s voice. 

“Five?” Diego repeats, the name somehow familiar and unfamiliar on his tongue. He’s heard Five say it before, never in reference to himself, but to groups of things, and when Diego glances down at his hands for a brief moment, he realizes it’s also a number, represented by all the fingers on one of his hands. It doesn’t sound like a name, not like the names in the stories Five reads to him, but Diego doesn’t contest it. 

He says his name again, and a few more times after it, feeling the way his mouth forms it, how it starts to roll of his tongue with a little more ease, but each time he says it, there’s a flicker of something across Five’s face, that same emotion that Diego couldn’t place earlier. He falls silent for a moment, but Five’s name is still echoing in his head, along with the words he’d said earlier, and it’s enough to make Diego string together another choppy sentence. “You kn-kn-know me?”  
  
Oh, what a dilemma Diego has backed him into, Five realizes then.

He tries to recall everything he learned about traumatic brain injury recovery and amnesia. Reginald had taught them all sorts of subjects in the field of neurology, but he hadn't extensively gone over brain injury, rather focusing more often on function. 

When it comes to brain injury, he'd already known and experienced the long road to recovery right alongside Diego. He knew already that the process of getting his brother back to normal would be lengthy and challenging. He also knows that in typical cases, the amnesiac period is equal to the length of the traumatic coma prior multiplied by three. It had taken Diego some weeks to even open his eyes the first time, but Five doesn't remember the exact number. He hadn't thought there would be any reason to. He does know that it's been far longer than three times the length of his coma, however.

He'd already committed to helping Diego in his physical recovery, but this? The thought of restructuring Diego's entire life for him? Five knows that in cases of amnesia, the symptoms often resolve themselves with time, but any point after 10 weeks without significant improvement often points to permanent damage. 

And so what is Five to do? Inform Diego of his life chronologically? Five is only aware of the first 13 years of his life. He'd only distress the man if he told him about knowing Diego when he was a child, while Five is still a kid himself. He would also have to explain time travel, and Five's powers had already distressed the man. He would only further upset him by being able to give him no information about the gap of time between Five's disappearance and his discovery of Diego. He could risk forming false memories in his brother's mind, or doing further damage to his already delicate psyche.  
So Five makes an incredibly difficult decision, one that would ultimately shape the rest of his entire life.

"I found you a year ago," he says. "We're friends."  
  
Diego accepts the answer because he doesn’t know any better. With no memories to reflect on, only the ones he’s made within the past year, he can’t confirm nor deny whether Five is telling the truth, but he believes him, and more than anything, he trusts Five. 

This is the only other person he knows, the only face he recognizes, the only touch he gets to feel. This boy, who is half his age but seems a thousand times smarter and stronger, is who Diego owes his life to. He knows nothing about him, but he wants to learn everything he can, everything that Five will tell him, everything that he can understand. 

“Found me?” He asks, turning his head to look at Five again. He doesn’t even remember being found. If he thinks hard enough about it, even though it makes his head ache, and Diego instinctively raises a hand to touch the caved in section of it before his hand falls back to the bed, he can remember an intense pain, but that’s it. He’d never been sure how he came to look this way and he’d never been able to ask him. Part of him wasn’t even sure he wanted to know the answer.  
  
It seems like a cruel irony, for Diego to have made it this far through his recovery, to finally feel brave enough to attempt speech, something Five had been longing for in the quiet apocalypse for a full year-- but he doesn't know anything. Five had been waiting and hoping to get information from Diego about what caused the end of the world, to give him a better idea of how to stop it when he made it back home-- but of course he doesn't even know Five, much less that they have super powers or are potentially the only people on earth capable of saving it. 

"You and I are the last two people left on earth," Five tells him somberly, reaching out to put his hand on top of Diego's.  
  
That’s something that Diego can’t wrap his head around. As he sits next to Five, staring at the bottle in his hand, he tries, _really_ tries, to understand it. Of course he’d seen the ruins around them, the near-constant cover of smoke, the fires that lasted for days on end, and he’d never seen anyone else, or heard Five mention anyone, but how was he supposed to know that meant that they were the only two people alive? 

The reality of the situation sinks in and Diego’s hand trembles underneath Five’s. The bedroom of their shack suddenly feels like it’s caving in on him and while Diego begins to panic, Five remains calm beside him. The feeling of being crushed and suffocated is all in his head, the head that’s currently reeling with a multitude of different thoughts that overwhelm him, but the voice that would normally tell him that the sensation isn't real isn’t currently working. His throat feels dry and when he tries to say something, nothing comes out but a confused, frustrated sound. He quickly pulls his hand away from Five’s, knocking over the bottle of champagne in his lap as his hands thread into his hair, hiding his face from the boy sitting beside him and he tugs, just to focus on something else other than the sinking feeling in his chest.  
  
Five feels a cold plunge sink into his stomach when he sees Diego start to panic. This is what he was trying to avoid, he didn't want to push or distress the man. He catches the bottle before too much of it soaks into the bed and puts it on the floor, quickly crowding into his space to pull Diego's hands out of his hair lest he scratch his scalp with his nails. 

"Hey, hey," he says, ducking his head to try and catch Diego's eye, his heart pounding uncomfortably in his chest as he worries about whether he could cause further psychological damage by pushing his brother too hard. "It's okay. It's _okay_. You're not alone, you've got me. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. We're friends, I'm gonna take care of you, alright?"  
  
The hands on his own are grounding, pulling Diego back from the tunnel he’s heading down in his head. He opens his eye, meeting Five’s concerned ones as the boy moves closer to him. Maybe if Diego were the man he used to be, he would have pushed Five away and insisted that he was fine, but he’s not, and he doesn’t feel fine, so he slumps towards him, dropping his head against Five’s shoulder. 

He’s twice his size and Diego’s only distantly aware that if he were to put all his weight on to Five, it would probably crush him, but he’s warm and his words are comforting and he’s the only other person left in this world. “Five,” he murmurs to himself, his name now a mantra to Diego, as he loosely wraps his arms around the boy’s small frame and allows himself to be comforted as his mind slowly starts to go hazy.  
  
Five holds him and holds him as he waits for the older man to get drowsy in the comfort, sagging and sleepy and soft, until his arms go slack and his breathing goes even, and he drifts off to sleep sitting up against Five's bracing weight.

Five helps him lay down and pulls the covers up to Diego's chin, but doesn't crawl into bed beside him. He just watches his sleeping face for a few long minutes, until he feels his whole body start to shake, and so he quietly excuses himself from the shack.

As he sits in the middle of their compound yard, their cats climb all over him and Five takes a moment to look up at the streaky sky. Living in the apocalypse for a year has taken so much from him and demanded more still. His upbringing was never going to be normal under Reginald, but even in the strict academy he has one half hour of recreation a week, and a regular schedule that he didn't have to take care of himself. He had a mother who prepared his meals and washed his clothes, and children his age he could socialize with. It was more of a normal childhood than _this._

Living like this, becoming not only his own caretaker but now also caretaker to a brother that doesn't even remember him, has forced Five to grow up entirely too quickly, aging a lifetime in the last year alone.

But now as the helplessness sinks in and the despair returns, Five allows himself just this one moment to be a child, and so he bunches himself up and cries.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been Five's idea to start moving the first time, but once Diego started actually expressing interest in the idea, Five had suddenly protested wholeheartedly. They had a regular food source at the home Five built a stone's throw from the ruins of the academy, they had shelter and safety in the walls he constructed. They had _stability_. And most importantly for Five, they were close by to the cemetery he dug for the rest of their family. The family he'd still yet to tell Diego about. The idea of having to walk past that cemetery with Diego at his side and watch him completely ignore the line of neat graves Five dug by hand makes him want to throw up. 

But he knows it isn't fair to try and keep Diego cooped up, anymore. Six months into their second year together, and Diego is stronger than ever. He's still not as muscular as he was when Five found him, just because of how lean their diet often is, but his strength has returned completely. He can walk without struggle, talk in complete sentences, and even perform small, fiddly tasks that require fine motor skills. Five has been testing his short term memory and fact recollection for months, preparing him for the idea of venturing out into the world together, looking for any reason to justify keeping him inside. 

If his short term memory wasn't sufficient, Five could say he might forget simple orders and wander off or get lost or hurt himself-- but Diego's short term memory is completely repaired, even if his long-term memory is still fractured and unwhole. 

If his motor skills were insufficient, Five could say he wasn't strong enough to protect himself if he had to-- but his fingers are as dexterous now as they ever were. Five can't even claim Diego's depth perception is holding him back, since he can't remember what it was like to have two eyes. It's remarkable, the way the plasticity of the human brain can compensate for itself.  
  
Eight months in, and Five has no more excuses. He often comes home to find Diego lifting weights he fashioned out of whatever was lying around the yard, or doing sit ups or pull ups. Five will chastise him for not having a shirt on in an environment where sand storms could kick up at any moment and peel the skin off his body-- but it's really just a cover, to get him to redress himself. Five is a red-blooded fourteen year old, and it's not as though he'd ever _forgotten_ his feelings for Diego. They'd been pushed to the back of his mind for so long to focus instead on the man's recovery, but now that there's nothing to distract him anymore, a large amount of his down time is spent reminiscing on the relationship he once shared with his brother. 

He recalls the very last night he spent in the house, before the fateful dinner he ran away from almost two years ago. He'd spent part of it in Diego's bed, teleporting directly into his room after Grace's last patrol of the night, and he'd crawled into bed with the other boy, where they laid nose to nose and knees to knees, whispering to one another until they were too tired to keep their eyes open. He can't remember now what they talked about that night, and that fact hurts in his chest. 

He wants to protect Diego from the world, he wants to keep him safe in their compound, secure and whole and _kept_. But he knows it isn't fair to hold him hostage, and it isn't fair to still think of Diego as the invalid he spent a year taking care of, when he can take care of himself now. He puts his own pants on and everything. There's nothing left for Five to protect him from that Diego couldn't protect himself from. Maybe it's the fear that Diego won't need him anymore that makes him want to keep him prisoner-- but he knows that's selfish, too.  
  
And so finally after months of drilling Diego, route planning and supply hording, they make the final push. Five releases their cats, some of whom scatter but most of which still linger around the compound anyway, and it's comforting to think that if they ever do come back, their kittens' kittens will probably still be lingering around this home permanently in a colony. They decide to bring Sally with them on a rope, as it's easy enough to get a goat to follow, and they finally disembark. 

Five decides to take them the opposite direction, away from the academy. He can't stand to see the unrecognition on Diego's face if they were to pass that cemetery that Five has resigned himself to probably never seeing again. It didn't matter, he'd left offerings out for each and every one of them, laid across their graves with love, as a parting gift and an apology that he wouldn't be able to visit for a long time, if ever again.  
  
They head west, the sun hot on their backs as they start their trek away from the only home Diego has ever known, but he doesn’t feel anything towards it. Most of his days were spent staring at a ceiling, trying to piece himself back together. He’d been getting restless and finally, Five seemed to be alright with the idea of moving, taking all they could carry on their backs or in their wagon and setting out. 

He isn’t motivated by the prospects of finding other people. Five had been convinced that they were the only two people left and after sitting with that thought for several weeks, Diego slowly started to accept it. Instead, he wants to see what remains of the world compared to the old pictures in a travel photography book Five had picked up once, the only book they’d tucked away with them, into the bag on Diego’s back, along with a road map they’d found on their first day out. 

They walk during the day, stopping to explore whatever ruins they feel like. They have no time limit, just the setting sun each day, but they almost always find a safe place to settle each night and if they don’t, they sleep in shifts, one to keep a watchful eye on the ever-changing wastes while the other rests for a few hours. 

They find new clothes, a pair of sturdy boots in Five’s size and a jacket that fits Diego’s growing frame. They find new food, new things that Diego gets to try, and a can of peaches becomes the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted after a long day of walking. They find the ruins of an old house with a basement that’s still relatively intact and covered from the elements, enough for them to set up base there for a few days. They give their feet a rest and enjoy the comforts of a protected building, while Sally makes herself comfortable in a patch of grass outside.  
  
Honestly, it's not as bad as Five was fearing it would be. His worst fear would be that they wouldn't be able to find food, but as it turns out when there's nobody else left on earth, everything is in pretty high supply. Bottled water, canned food, sometimes even fresh food managed to grow up through the cracks. It's amazing, how fast nature will bounce back and start to expand and thrive in even the harshest of environments. 

The worst dangers of their adventures happen to be the weather and the wildlife. Most apex predators were killed out, since they lived on the surface, but anything that was underground when the fires spread had survived. That meant there were a lot of rats-- a _lot_ of rats, and they'd evolved and mutated to being quite large and aggressive. There wasn't much threat in a single rat the size of a football, but they often traveled in packs of six to ten, at which point crowbars and 2X4s became their best friend, swatting the rats out of the air when they would take leaps for their face. They tasted decent when cooked over fire, at least. 

Most of Five's fears fade away, after the first couple weeks of exploring. Diego proves to be incredibly capable and strong, his coordination fully redeveloped and his strength unmatched. It actually stuns Five a couple times, to watch Diego lift or push something out of the way that Five couldn't even kind of budge. It makes him feel warm, somewhere between his chest and stomach whenever he sees Diego's arms bulge and flex.  
  
Does that make Five gay? He'd never actually thought about it, before. Back in the academy when he would visit his brother in the middle of the night, lay on top of him and kiss him and grind on him until they both got off, he'd never before considered whether that made him _gay_. He doesn't think so, since he'd always had similarly tingly feelings when he thought of Vanya, or girls in the magazines that Klaus would smuggle into the academy. But he doesn't know if it really matters, either. It doesn't seem like a priority to figure out. There's nobody else left in the world to judge him even if he was. Except for Diego, but Five knows enough to know that homophobia is a learned trait, not an inherent one, and it's not something Diego would spontaneously develop after a head injury. 

Which means he can watch him shamelessly whenever he finds ways to stay limber and exercise. He even makes excuses to join him, just to put himself closer to the older man and watch him work. It actually has a good affect on him, too, he can feel himself get stronger after a few weeks of working alongside him, his scrawny body slowly building up as he works the muscles over. He has to wonder whether he'll ever look like Diego, with his broad shoulders and the deep grooves in his back that always make Five stare. The distraction is getting to be a problem.  
  
Diego had grown to enjoy his solo exercises - what had once been a challenge to overcome was now a way to keep his blood flowing and a way to clear his head. Even though he had enjoys the independence it brings, he doesn’t complain when Five starts to join him. He doesn’t say much, not about how little Five can lift at first or how long of a break he needs to catch his breath between rounds of sprints, but sometimes he’ll correct his posture, a large hand settling on the base of Five’s back to straighten him as he uses one of their full gallon water jugs as a dumbbell. 

The touches are nothing more than friendly, a gentle reminder for Five not to push himself too hard, much like Diego had heard him say to him. He doesn’t seem to notice that Five never exercises by himself, but always waits until Diego is already halfway through his set to join. He starts to enjoy the company and starts to think of ways they can work with each other. It passes the time, but it also keeps them sharp, and with a steady supply of food from their travels, they don’t need to worry about over-exerting themselves without refueling their bodies. 

The weeks turn into months and their wandering brings them further inland. Diego still struggles with reading, one of the few remaining effects from his accident, so Five is usually their navigator, matching fine lines on their roadmap to the ones they come across in real life. Even though Diego is conscious, independent, and self-capable, he still trusts Five, and follows wherever he leads.   
  
That’s not to say he doesn’t have his own opinions. He voices them - Five often tells him he says them without thinking, something Diego knows he should probably work on, but he doesn’t need to filter himself around Five, not after he’d already seen him at his worst. They disagree, but it’s always easily resolved, and most of the time, it’s Diego admitting defeat to Five, because even though he’s half his age, his experiences outnumber Diego’s. He knows Five is his friend and friends only want what’s best for each other. 

Winter approaches, bringing harsh winds and short days, and they decide to put their journey on halt for the cold months in an old fallout shelter they discover in a backyard of a ruined house. It’s a tiny, narrow space with two sets of bunk beds on either side of the wall, a shelf stocked with canned goods, and an old radio that does nothing more than play static. It’s the first time that they sleep in their own beds and Diego quickly realizes that he has a had time sleeping without Five’s warm body pressed up against his. By the second night, their twin mattresses end up on the floor, pushed together to make one, and Diego sleeps better with his arm draped around the boy, even as the harsh winter rages above them.  
  
Five still ventures out some days whenever he gets restless, bundled up against the cold, with Diego worrying all the way out the door. He manages to convince Diego to at least stay behind most of the time, and finds himself embarrassed by the fact that he actually needs time _away_ from the man. He loves Diego more than anything, but that's kind of the problem. His thoughts about Diego have turned into a full-blown crush, and he's man enough to understand that now. 

He's not stupid. He knows there's not a snowball's chance in hell between them, considering the fact that Diego is twice his age and doesn't have any memory of the relationship they once shared, but the realization for Five is retroactive. It hurts in his chest sometimes to think about the time he wasted with Diego back home, when he knew his feelings and was just denying them to himself. He should have told Diego ages ago that he had a crush on him instead of just pretending they were normal brothers who would sleep in the same bed together after kissing until they passed out. There was never anything normal about them. 

Five needs that time away from Diego now, to clear his head. To reposition himself and analyze their relationship. He's Diego's caretaker and friend, and nothing more. The other man never has to know about his feelings.  
  
In a distracted haze, Five nearly walks directly into a sign with his head ducked low against the icy wind. He raises a hand to try and block some of the blizzard out of his face and squints at the sign through his goggles, and finds it advertising an underground hotel. Instantly Five's brain kicks into excited overdrive, and he looks around to spot the crumbled ruin of the building in question. He trudges through the snow to its edge and peers inside through the cracks to find a space big enough for him to teleport into, and warps inside once he's got a spot visualized. He doesn't use his powers as often as he should be-- another reason he likes to spend time alone, since he refuses to let Diego see him teleport after the last time he reacted so badly. 

A short snooping session around the inside of the ruined lobby, and he's able to find stairs downwards. He unearths one of his flashlights and cranks it on, inspecting the basement space with an awed expression. It's dusty, obviously, and rats scatter from the light in all directions, but it's beautiful, almost entirely untouched by the elements. The tall ceiling is gilded in a handsome art deco style, the walls lined with pillars with planter boxes boasting big dusty fake plants between them. There's a big fountain in the center, its water all long since evaporated and the bottom just blanketed with coins. There are slot machines and a big bar, a kitchen in the back stocked with canned food and sectional couches winding every which way and doors off to the side, every one of which holds a fancy hotel room. His heart thuds in excitement as he gathers enough energy to warp right back to the front door of the bunker he and Diego had found, and hastily lets himself back inside. 

"Diego," he drops down to the ground, and pulls down his hood and yanks off his goggles, grinning from ear to ear. "Pack up. You're not gonna believe what I found."  
  
Diego had been in the middle of getting dressed, his shirt pulled halfway over his head when Five came back, sooner than he’d expected. He arched a brow at him as he tugged his shirt the rest of the way down before picking up his next layer, sticking his arms through the sleeves. “We’re leaving?” He asks, glancing around their newest home before he looks back at Five, and the smile on his face tells him that he’s found somewhere even better. 

Diego isn’t a huge fan of this bunker - the walls always feel they were caving on him, but it’s warm, protected, and stocked. Still, he trusts Five and knows he would never have them move in this weather if there weren’t some sort of better outcome. So, he puts on his layers, sits down on the edge of his bed to lace up his boots and glances up at Five as he starts to pack their bags, but leaves the cans of food on the wall. “We aren’t bringing those?” He asks as he tugs his hat on his head before standing up and grabbing his own bag.  
  
"We don't need them," Five says, his voice trembling with excitement as he shoves his own things back into his pack, and unties Sally from the wall so he can pick her up in his arms, unwilling to lose her in the snow. 

Normally he wouldn't leave a single thing behind, but the more time they waste packing up food they don't need compared to the smorgasbord waiting for them at the hotel, the less light there will be to make it back. And in his excitement, the idea of having to wait until tomorrow morning to make it to their new winter home feels absolutely impossible. No, they have to make it there tonight or Five won't be able to contain himself, and he'll spoil the surprise.

They trek carefully through the snow, boots crunching and trudging, held together by a rope that connects from Five's belt to Diego's, an old trick they started implementing after the first harrowing time they were separated in the snow. When they approach the building, Five's excitement only grows. Upon reaching the doors however, he realizes that in his eagerness, he'd teleported right back to camp without taking into account how they were going to get back inside through the caved-in entrance. He pauses at the front door and takes in the destroyed front half of the lobby with clever eyes.

"You stay here, I have to squeeze in through the entrance I found before," he lies over the whistling wind, and he passes Sally into Diego's arms before untying the rope from his belt. He trudges around the side of the building, and once out of sight, teleports carefully into the lobby. Moments later he's able to lift a piece of metal from the inside, enough that Diego can send Sally trotting through first, before crawling through himself.

"Just this way," Five says, excitedly leading Diego down the flight of stairs to the extravagant basement, every nerve ending in his body vibrating with anticipation.  
  
It doesn’t look like much at first, just another caved in building that leaves Diego wondering how much better it could be than their little bunker, but after he crawls through the little opening Five had made, wiping some of the snow off himself, he follows Five deeper and pulls his flashlight from his pocket. 

He stops at the bottom of the stairs, slightly breathless just from the sight of this place. He’s never seen anything like it and all it once, he understands Five’s excitement and his desire to leave so suddenly. Their bunker is _nothing_ compared to this massive, beautiful underground sprawl, completely untouched by the destruction, except for the distant scurrying sounds of the rats and a little bit of dust that settled over most surfaces. 

“What _is_ this place?” he asks, finally tearing his gaze away from the decorations and towards Five as he tugs his hat off, shaking out his long hair and watching a few snowflakes fall on to the carpet. He sets his bag down on the ground, taking a few steps towards the bar, running a gloved fingertip over the dusty counter before he looks at the wall of liquor behind it, completely stocked with any kind they could ever want. “This is insane...”  
  
"Some kind of underground hotel," Five answers as he unloads his own bag from his back and releases Sally to trot around and inspect the place. "It's a little dusty, but there's a fully stocked kitchen back there, all kinds of rooms with big beds, and look at _that!"_ he points at the bar that Diego is already standing nearby, at the rows and rows of dusty liquor bottles. "Hang on, I'm gonna try to find the breaker."

Theoretically, this place should still be hooked up to the power grid, some part of which might have remained intact, and if he can just figure out how to repair any damaged connections, they could actually have electricity this winter. He ducks into the boiler room and sticks the end of his flashlight in his teeth so he can work with both hands, messing around with the wires behind the breaker box, and once it seems to be in working order, he reattaches the switches, throws the main breaker, and waits. 

One light bulb just explodes in a shower of sparks, startling Sally so badly she stiffens up and falls over, but after that a few of the other overhead lights flicker and start to turn on, followed by the wall lights. The slot machines start blinking and clinking, and the fridge in the kitchen starts humming. Five comes running back out, grinning from ear to ear. 

"Isn't this incredible?" he gasps, throwing his arms out to gesture around them. "This is the most untouched place I've ever found."  
  
As the power slowly starts to course through the hotel, rows of lights illuminating the halls, Diego turns to watch the entire place come to life, and it truly _is_ incredible. It’s almost overwhelming, all the bright lights and weird noises and the distant hum of electricity in the air. Diego knows nothing like this, and he can’t imagine what this place was like before this all happened, bustling with people in fancy clothes. Distantly, he wonders if there are any left behind in forgotten suitcases, but he knows they’ll have plenty of time to explore. 

He turns back towards Five, a lopsided smile crossing his face as he begins shrugging off some of his layers, laying them out on one of the barstools. He hasn’t seen a look like this on Five’s face since... _ever_. He looks like the boy he truly is, all the hard lines from the time he’s endured out there briefly fading for this moment. Diego’s glad his memory is intact - he never wants to forget this. 

He approaches Five, clasping a hand on his shoulder as his eyes scan around the room again, taking it all in, before they land on Five. “You really outdid yourself, kid.” He tells him, still smiling as he squeezes Five’s shoulder. “Makes the bunker look like shit.”  
  
Five bounces on the balls of his feet for a moment, completely overwhelmed by the praise. Despite knowing that Diego is his brother, and closer to his equal than anything else-- in fact if he were to really scrutinize the power imbalance between them, it would skew heavily in _his_ favor since he knows so much more about Diego than Diego knows about him-- the simple fact that Diego is twice his age has Five responding on an instinctive level to the praise, eager to please someone he sees as an older respectable figure. 

He darts into the kitchen to start unwrapping boxes. Everything that was in the fridge or freezer is long since destroyed, but there's plenty of nonperishables in the pantry, the likes of which they've never had since their lives began in this new world together. He unearths powdered pudding which he mixes up with a bit of Sally's milk, and they enjoy the confection along with a can of maraschino cherries and some sweet corn, along with a couple fried rats, with salt and pepper and _everything_. 

Comfortably fed, they take some time to explore the space, and Five breaks open one of the slot machines just for the pure, childish joy of holding handfuls upon handfuls of shiny coin tokens. He likes the noise they make when they clink together. He really is like a kid again, acting his age for once as he drags around the sectional couches to make a little nest area, turning several pieces in on themselves to make an oval with high walls in every direction, and he strips several of the mattresses from the bedrooms, dragging in slightly moth eaten and rat-stripped quilts and blankets and sheets and pillows to make quite the impressive little blanket nest, which he strips off his boots and socks and leaps into just for the pleasure of bouncing. 

It really comes down to the little things, sometimes. When was the last time he _bounced_ on anything?  
  
Diego helps Five rearrange the entire place, moving pieces of furniture that are too big for him to drag himself, and the effort is worth it to see the smile on his face and hear the laugh that spills from his lips when he leaps into his pile of pillows and blankets. He’s still itching to explore the rest of this place, but after a moment of watching Five, he also kicks off his socks and joins him. 

They end up laying there for a moment, side to side on their backs. Diego’s eyes trace the intricate pattern on the ceiling, occasionally glancing over at Five. He looks relaxed and for the first time, Diego realizes he probably isn’t thinking about their next move, or where their next can of food will come from, or what will happen in the next snowstorm. He gets to be a child again and Diego is happy to be a part of it. 

He leaves Five in his blanket nest after a moment, wandering the halls further down. He finds a pool, the water long since evaporated and now home to a few rat skeletons, and a rec room, with workout equipment that look like torture devices to Diego, but he doesn’t think they’ll be too hard to figure out. There are more hotel rooms, some completely untouched except for the rats, others look like the occupants had simply got up and left one day, leaving behind suitcases that he rifles through, unearthing a collection of new clothes for them, a handful of books, and a fancy pocketknife that Diego decides to keep for himself. 

He wonders how big this place is, but he doesn’t go any further, instead returning to the nest Five was still occupying, climbing back in with him and startling him out of the light nap he'd dozed into. “You think there are more places like this?” He asks after a few moments of silence pass between them. If there were, they’d have no reason not to keep moving.  
  
"Like _this?"_ Five asks, rolling up on his side to face the other man. "I doubt it. There's not a lot of underground buildings, most places build up not down. A lot of basements didn't survive or are inaccessible cause their buildings fell down on top of them-- this place is a pretty special case. It'll be a good place to hunker down for the winter, though." 

He sits up in the nest and looks around the big lobby again, feeling warm enough to take off a few more layers as central air does its job and keeps them toasty without an open fire for the first time in almost two years. He's in nothing but his pants and undershirt, and can't even remember the last time he had the luxury to be so undressed, even able to take off his _socks_ with an environment safe enough to walk on with bare feet. Even in the warmer parts of the year, layers are required to protect from both wildlife and the elements, but down here, he can spread his bare toes on the linoleum. 

They're going to need stuff to do all winter, he realizes. There's plenty of space to spread out, but they're going to need some kind of activity to keep them sane. He might be able to venture out and find something for them to take the time to repair, or scavenge some more books from the rooms to keep working on Diego's reading and writing comprehension. His eyes fall on the bar, the huge display of liquors and spirits calling to him. 

He's never been compelled to drink, despite knowing it's a popular pastime among humans and has been for centuries back. The idea of inebriation never interested him, losing ones faculties voluntarily didn't sound like a good time to him. He preferred to be in control at all times, to be sharp and quick in case of danger. But they're safe down here, there's no danger of getting drunk and wandering into some kind of calamity he'd be ill-prepared for. The only alcohol he'd ever had was that champagne he shared with Diego a year ago now, and it sucked. He has to wonder whether other libations taste better.  
  
The two thoughts intersect in his brain at once, the desire for entertainment and the curiosity for liquor, and remind him that drinking games exist. Klaus was always trying to get them to play with him, and Five had always brushed him off. He wishes now that he'd taken more time to spend childish afternoons with his siblings. He looks back down at Diego, grinning. 

"Ever played a drinking game?" he asks, fully knowing the answer already.  
  
Diego arches an eyebrow at that, following Five‘s gaze towards the shelves of liquor behind the bar. “No...” he mumbles, turning his attention back to the boy as a curious expression settles over his face. They’ve played games before - card games with an old deck that Five found once, rounds of ‘I spy’ on calmer days of their travels, 20 questions on late nights when neither of them could sleep, but Diego doesn’t even know what a drinking game entails. “What’s that?” 

He wasn’t sure if he’d been a drinker before all this, and he hadn’t really liked the champagne they’d shared that one time, but Diego was curious and wasn’t one to say no to whatever was offered.  
  
"When I was a kid," Five starts, and then chuckles as he realizes he technically _still_ is a kid. It's crazy how much he feels like he's grown up in just a year and ten months. "Well, a younger kid, my siblings and I would sometimes sneak liquor from our dad and play a game called Never Have I Ever."

He hops out of the nest and pads across the lobby to sort through the bottles in search of something that won't suck to drink at room temperature, settling eventually on a nice malt whiskey, and he grabs two shot glasses, beckoning Diego over to sit on the barstool. "I never drank this stuff because I didn't want to at the time, I would just drink water, but the game part is the fun bit anyway. "

Pouring two shots, he pushes one over to Diego. "The way the game works is that you say something you've never done, and if the other person has done it, they have to take the shot." He pauses as he realizes how complicated this might get with Diego's total lack of memory, but he substitutes on the fly. "For you, it could be whether you _would_ do it? Since the whole--" he gestures at the right side of his own head. "Memory thing."  
  
Diego joins him at the bar, slumping into the stool beside Five, watching him pour the two shots. He grabs his and carefully lifts it, his hand steadier than it ever had been as he holds it under his nose and takes a whiff of it. It’s a mistake - the way it burns has him quickly scrunching his face and setting the shot back down on the bar. 

“Yeah, alright.” He finally says, glancing back at Five. It’s hard to imagine him doing this with other people, faceless figures that Diego only know exist from how often Five talks about them, but he’s still just a kid. Of course he would have been getting up to ridiculous antics with his siblings, not preparing for the apocalypse they’re living in now. “You wanna start?”  
  
"Sure," Five braces the bottoms of his bare feet against the legs of the barstool and squints in thought. He has to suggest something he's never done, but that Diego might be willing to do. Finally he settles on, "Okay, never have I ever pretended to be sick to get out of doing something."  
  
Diego stares at Five as he thinks, but his gaze shifts down to the shot sitting in front of him as he mulls it over. It isn’t that hard to think of doing that. Diego was sure that if he had a normal life with a normal job, he’d probably fake sick to get out of it at least once. He picks up his shot glass remembering not to smell it this time as he raises it to his lips and throws it back. 

It burns even worse than the champagne, almost hard to swallow as it makes his way down his throat and settles in the pit of his stomach, leaving him feeling warmer than he had a minute ago. He makes a face, blinking a few times as his mouth acclimates to the bitter taste before looking back at Five with a grin. “Yeah, I’d do that.” 

As he thinks over a scenario to ask Five, he grabs the bottle of whiskey, filling his shot glass up again before he sets the bottle back on the bar. “Never have I ever...” He repeats, cocking his head to the side as he tries to think of something that Five has done, but for all that Five knows about him, he still knows so little about him. “Stolen anything. You know, before all this.”  
  
"That's cheating," Five says, but he's grinning. "I just told you I stole liquor from my dad."

He doesn't make a fuss out of it, though, he pinches his nose and takes his shot. He grimaces even worse than Diego, coughing loudly after swallowing, and shakes out his hands and head. "Oh man that's _bad_ ," he wheezes, slapping his chest and clearing his throat before pouring out another shot for himself. "Okay, if you're gonna take cheap shots I am too-- never have I ever been 30 years old."  
  
Diego laughs quietly as he watches Five take the shot, the look on his face priceless as the taste hits him, but his own amusement fades when Five his him with his next statement. “Hey, that wasn’t meant to be a cheap shot!” he says defensively. “You said you never drank it, so I don’t know if I’d count that as stealing.” He shrugs before grinning in Five‘s direction again, grabbing his shot glass. “You want me to drink for that one or you wanna give me another?”  
  
"I'll let you off this time," Five says, giving Diego a scolding waggle of his finger. "But you're on thin ice. Okay-- never have I ever... kissed a girl." 

That one might be a little bit selfish, but he just has to know whether Diego could envision himself doing that. It's not like the Diego he knew when they were both kids wouldn't have kissed a girl, but... he just has to know.  
  
Diego blinks slightly in surprise at that. It isn’t something he’s thought about yet, as on his road to recovery, there were always other things on his mind than _kissing_ people. Sure, the girls in the books and magazines they found were pretty, but Diego never thought about kissing them. 

Still, when he looks in the mirror and sees the shell of his former self staring back at him, he likes to imagine what he looked like before all the scars and dents and with two perfectly intact eyes. He’s sure he’s kissed somebody, but like everything else, he doesn’t remember it. He hesitates for a moment longer before he grabs the shot and downs it. It goes down easier the second time, and it starts to taste a little better, but it still leaves him scrunching up his face. “Yeah, I think I would,” he says, clearing his throat after the alcohol settles.  
  
That shouldn't make Five jealous. It's ridiculous that it does. They're alone in the wasteland together, it's not even like Diego _could_ kiss a girl-- there are no girls _to_ kiss. Secondly, Five already _knew_ Diego would have kissed a girl, even when they were children he wasn't disinterested in them. And even then, Diego is twice his age! He knew a long time ago that their relationship wouldn't ever be what it was like back at the academy. And besides all that, he set _himself_ up for this by asking Diego in the first place! It's stupid for him to be jealous, but he feels it like a pit in his stomach anyway.

Luckily, he's a master of his poker face, and does little more than smirk when he says, "Your turn," as he refills Diego's shot.  
  
Diego doesn’t catch the quick flare of jealously from the boy sitting beside him. Five’s good at hiding his emotions and Diego still has trouble reading them, so he moves on, watching Five refill his shot glass with steady hands while he thinks of another statement. 

“Never have I ever kissed a _boy_ ,” he says after a moment, his mind connecting the dots between Five’s statement and this one, wondering if there had been a reason for Five to specify. It’s hard to imagine Five kissing _anybody_ \- he’s young and has never talked about anything close to that, except for passages in books that he seems to read over rather quickly.  
  
Five freezes up for a second. There's no reason for him to assume his brother would have spontaneously developed negative opinions to the concept of homosexuality, it's true-- but the idea still scares him. If he somehow repulsed or disgusted the man and he ran off, that would be his only companion, gone. It would be so easy to lie, to simply not take his shot... 

But on the other hand, he could find out definitively what Diego thinks of the idea. It's selfish, knowledge sought purely for Five's pleasure, but... Diego doesn't need to know that. He picks up the shot and downs it, grimacing a little bit less this time, but he does still cough as he refills it. It serves a dual purpose besides, working to numb the ache that comes with yet another nail in the coffin, yet _another_ confirmation that this Diego has no memory of the childish love they used to share. They'd kissed more times than Five ever could have hoped to count, but of course Diego would forget that along with everything else.  
  
Diego has to admit that the answer takes him by surprise, watching Five throw back the shot as an admission without him having to say anything. He can’t picture it, but he wonders who it was and where they are now and if they meant anything to Five. It doesn't seem appropriate to ask questions about it, even if he is curious.

He also lets his mind wander to himself for a moment. Would he kiss a man if he were given the opportunity? The only man he knows is barely a man at all, still just a boy sitting on the stool beside him, half his age and Diego can’t do that. He doesn’t even let himself entertain the idea for longer than a second. Instead, he just grins at Five. “Didn’t think you had it in you.” He said, pulling his shot glass a little closer before he glances at Five again. “Your turn.”  
  
"What, just cause I'm young?" Five's voice cracks, embarrassing. He clears his throat. "I had a--" what should he call his relationship with Diego? They weren't boyfriends, they weren't anything serious at all. They hadn't even talked about it once. He shakes his head. "Nevermind. Uhh... never have I ever... killed someone." This one is as much another test of Diego's memory as anything else, to see if he has some subconscious ability to unlock his past. Five has definitely seen a few bodies leave the scene with knife wounds in them after his family was done.  
  
Diego doesn’t get a chance to ask Five to finish his thought, not before the boy continues and says something that surprises him even more than what he’d just found out about him. He shakes his head quickly, but the more he thinks about it, the more he just isn’t sure. 

He doesn’t think he has it in him to kill somebody. Maybe if his life depended on it, but there was nobody out here to kill, just Five, and Diego would _never_ , not after all he’d done for him. “No,” he finally murmurs, shaking his head again. He wouldn’t kill anybody and he really doesn’t think he would have at any point in his life, even though he knows nothing about the man he used to be. “I don’t think so.”  
  
As charming as it is to hear the man who used to wield knives like extensions of his fingers say that he doesn't think he could kill someone, it just confirms the worst for Five-- that there really isn't very much left of the boy he used to know inside of the man Diego is today. Maybe he's wrong, maybe Diego grew out of the habit by the time he was an adult organically-- but considering he found him in the rubble strapped to the nine with knife belts, knives he still carries with him to this day to use both as weapons and tools, he doubts that very highly. 

"Your turn," he says, rather than pass any external judgement on Diego's declaration. Five thinks that if it came down to it, he could kill someone. Maybe it's because of how many months he's spent hunting and killing for food, but he thinks he could. It'd just be up to him to protect Diego, if something happened.  
  
Diego hesitates for a moment, staring down at the amber-colored liquid in the shot glass. He isn’t sure where to go from here - they’ve covered kissing and killing, anything else he could ask wouldn’t be anywhere near as exciting, and although he’s a big man, his mind is still scrambled, and he can feel the alcohol already clouding his mind. If he can already feel it, he wonders how it’s affecting Five, who’s half his size. 

“Never have I ever...” He begins, scratching at his chin, his fingers catching on the facial hair that’s been growing there since the last time Five had trimmed it for him. “gotten a tattoo.”  
  
That gives Five pause, he looks across at his brother with a chuckle. He thinks it's a joke at first, until he sees the look on Diego's face, serious as anything.

"Wait, you're not joking?" Five knows that Diego's memories are stripped for parts, but his tattoo is perfectly visible on his wrist. He reaches out to take Diego by the left hand and flips it over, pushing his sleeve up to expose the faded black circle around the picture of an umbrella. "That's a tattoo, Diego," he says. "You got it a long time ago, that's why it's all faded. A long time before we met and you lost your memories."  
  
Diego gives Five a confused look, glancing down at his hand when Five grabs it and pushes his sleeve up, revealing the mark on his inner wrist. He’s definitely noticed it before, but for some reason, he never thought it was a tattoo, just something he’d gotten from the accident like all his other scars. He pulls his hand from Five’s grip, moving it closer to his eye as he inspects it, the ink long faded and half of it covered with a long scar. 

“Oh... I didn’t realize,” he mumbles, dropping his hand back down on the bar and he looks back at Five. “Wonder what it was when I got it.”  
  
"It's an umbrella," Five says unhelpfully. Diego's _seen_ an umbrella before, it's not like he doesn't know what they are. Then he grabs his shot and knocks it back, and this time he doesn't wince at all. Either he's getting used to the burn, or he's just gone numb, but either way he's feeling pleasantly warm and a little light-headed, and has to concentrate very hard to keep his hand steady as he refills the glass.

He doesn't think about the consequences of confirming that he's gotten a tattoo. If he wasn't drinking he might have, but the buzz makes him irrational, prevents him from thinking clearly. He also doesn't think about how this is the first time he's ever been without long sleeves in front of the man, which puts that same tattoo on full display. The tattoo that inexplicably matches Diego's.  
  
Diego wonders how Five knows, but that thought disappears when he watches Five take his shot and he blinks at him in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that one - who in their right mind would give a fourteen-year-old a tattoo, but as he watches Five refill his glass, he catches a glimpse of it. It’s in the same spot as his own, his inner wrist, and Diego can’t stop himself before he reaches out to grab his arm, twisting it over to get a look at it. 

He inspects the ink, stark against Five’s pale skin, still in near-perfect condition, and his eyes trace the bold lines of a circle with an umbrella in it. His gaze flickers down to his own wrist and maybe it’s the alcohol that’s fogging his mind, but they look similar. He lets go of Five’s hand, hiding his in his lap as his thumb presses against his own tattoo. He isn’t going to jump to conclusions, although his brain is rapidly trying to make a connection that it isn't quite capable of making, he just shakes his head and lets go of his own wrist in favor of reaching for his shot. “Guess I should drink for that one too then, huh?”  
  
Five's heart is still pounding, even after Diego let go of his hand. He breathes a little harder, waiting for something to click, willing some old memory to come back... but nothing does. He exhales tiredly, an old familiar ache settling in his chest, like another pebble sinking to the bottom of a cup. There have been so many moments where he held his breath waiting for _something_ to unlatch in his mind, and just as many pebbles in the cup, displacing the water level higher and higher. He knows eventually the cup will overflow. 

"Yeah, I guess," he says, watching Diego down the shot before reaching out to refill his glass, his mind swirling with thoughts. He's silent for a moment, and then rather than offer another round, he asks a question that he knows is just setting himself up for more possible disappointment-- but still, he has to try. "If you could have a super power, what would you want it to be? Just out of curiosity."  
  
It isn’t a question that Diego expects to be asked, as it isn’t a never-have-I-ever, but it’s interesting enough to make him think. It hasn’t crossed his mind before, but Diego’s familiar with the basic superpowers in some of the stories that Five has read him. There’s super strength, flying, invisibility, being able to control the elements. They all sound interesting, but none of them are the answer Diego settles on. 

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, tracing a finger around the rim of his shot glass, looking between it and Five. “What’s it called when you can move stuff with your mind?” He can feel the word on the tip of his tongue, he’s heard Five say it, but he struggles to get it out - one of the rare moments where he still gets tripped up with his speech. “Telecon-something, right?”  
  
"Telekinesis," Five answers immediately, feeling a giddy clench in his throat. Maybe it's just the alcohol making him feel loose and stupid, but there's the flicker of hope behind his sternum. That's the closest Diego has ever gotten to uncovering something from his past. Maybe it's just pure coincidence, but it seems too serendipitous to write off entirely. Surely some subconscious part of his mind must be remembering something. "Do you want to try?"

It would be a stupid question, for any sane person. Maybe if they were both kids it would sound just like playing pretend, but Diego is a grown adult. Five would have thought all of that if he wasn't currently riding a buzz that keeps soaking deeper into his bones the more shots he takes.  
  
“Yeah, telekinesis,” Diego repeats, and the syllables come out a little more choppy than he wanted them to. He doesn’t dwell on it, though. He tries not to beat himself up over little slips like that, and in this moment, when Five is asking him if he wants to try something impossible, he doesn’t even think of it. 

“Try?” He asked, giving the boy a confused look, one eyebrow cocked in curiosity. Super powers aren’t real, and if they were, Diego was sure he’d already know if he had one or not. “I don’t think that’s something I can just try.”  
  
"Why not?" Five says, trying not to sound impatient. He hasn't come this far with Diego only to push him too hard too suddenly now. "Either it works or it doesn't, and I'm the only person who would see. Are you afraid of embarrassing yourself in front of Sally? I don't think she'll tell anyone."

The goat in question is relaxing on one of the couches behind them, happily munching on _something_ she found to be edible in the lobby area. Diego looks over his shoulder at their goat, watching her for a moment, but she’s too absorbed in whatever she’s chewing on to even register that he’s looking at her, and he turns back to Five. He supposed he has a point - the only person to see his failure would be Five and he knows he won’t laugh at him. 

“I wouldn’t even know how...” he mumbles, shrugging his shoulders as he looks at his shot glass. Maybe if he concentrates hard enough on it, he can move it, but Diego feels silly as he stares at it, willing it to move in his mind, but it remains glued to the table and his shoulders slump slightly in defeat.  
  
"Maybe... maybe it needs a head start," Five suggests, feeling his heart hammering in his chest as he does. "You could try throwing it first."

This might turn out to be nothing. He doesn't even know if Diego is _capable_ of using his powers anymore, or if they got mashed up along with the rest of his frontal lobe when his head was cracked open. Five hadn't even known how to start broaching the subject before now, but if liquor is what it took to get those gears turning, so be it. He would have had them drinking ages before if he knew it would bring them this close to their first genuine breakthrough in almost two years.  
  
Diego looks between the glass and Five in surprise, as if he’s shocked that he would suggest throwing it and potentially breaking it, but there’s nobody here to yell at them and there isn’t a shortage of shot glasses here. He grabs it and throws back the liquid in it without being prompted to, the burn having slowly faded into a smooth slide down his throat. 

He gives Five a sideways glance, just to confirm that he’s serious, and when he’s met with an unreadable expression, Diego turns his head towards the glass. He throws it straight up, just a foot above the bar, watching it immediately fall back into the palm of his open hand. He tries again, focusing harder, and for a split second, the glass remains suspended in mid air before it lands in his hand again. Diego barely notices it, but whether it’s denial or the buzz from the alcohol, he can’t tell.  
  
Five noticed. He noticed it like a punch to the gut. He thanks whatever powers may be for his practiced poker face, or he's certain he would be frightening the older man right now. The alcohol in his system has him making rash decisions, but still he tries not to rush the man, he can't risk pushing or scaring him and undoing the process they've made just in the last few minutes. 

"Throw it that way," Five says, swiveling in his stool to face away from the bar, and gestures directly in front of himself. "But think about hitting that pillar right there," he juts his chin at a marble post to their left.  
  
Diego follows Five’s eyes across the room, at the pillar he’s motioning towards, and he wants to say no. He doesn’t want to make a fool of himself, but they both know that he won’t say no to Five - he hasn’t yet and he won’t right now. 

His gaze once again flickers between the glass, Five, and the pillar to his side as he turns his stool around to face forward. He shakes the shot glass in his hand for a moment, feeling the weight of it in his palm and the shape of it between his fingers. He can see the pillar out of the corner of his eye, just a white blur in his peripherals as he slowly lifts his hand and throws the shot glass forward. 

He concentrates, pouring everything into it as his gaze fixated on the glass. It doesn’t feel foolish, but almost instinctual, like he’s done this before. He remembers the goal is the pillar and suddenly the trajectory of the shot glass curves, but as soon as Diego blinks in surprise, it falls from the air and shatters on the tile a few feet from the pillar.  
  
Five jumps off the stool entirely in his excitement, his entire body going tight in that moment like a bowstring pulled by an expert archer. Hyperventilating with a joy too big for his body, he whips back around to look at Diego, grinning from ear to ear. 

"You did it," he gasps, "You did it, Diego you _did_ it--" 

He reaches up to grab the man by both sides of his face, more excited and animated than Diego has ever seen him. He looks very much like a little boy like this, bursting out of his skin with energy, eyes wide and shaking like he's been hooked up to a car battery. Gone is any thought of tempering his reaction, keeping calm for Diego's sake, it's the first real, _real_ breakthrough they've had.  
  
Diego is a bit taken back by Five’s sudden excitement, but he doesn’t pull away from his grip, instead just stares back at him. He’d been disappointed initially, watching the glass shatter against the ground instead of the pillar, but Five’s joy is contagious and Diego can’t help but grin down at him in response.

“Yeah,” he laughs, a little breathlessly, trying to nod his head, but Five’s hands are still on either side of his face, keeping him in place. “Yeah, I guess I did.” Diego‘s mind is really too clouded to make sense of what just happened, so he isn’t grasping for an explanation and for this moment, he decides to just accept that he’d done the impossible and Five is happy for him.  
  
"Do you have any idea what this _means_ , Diego?" Five says, practically vibrating as he feels the floodgates open. For so many months now he's had to keep himself firmly in check, to control his reactions with a tightly clenched fist. Everything was taken into account for Diego's recovery, _everything_. From the words Five chose to the way he composed himself around the other man, from the very thoughts in his head, every moment of his life was ruled by Diego-- but right now he isn't considering any of that. Right now he's drunk and so happy he could cry. "You're getting _better_ ," he answers his own question, his hands slipping down to grab his brother by the shoulders. "I'm so _proud_ of you, Diego-- _fuck_ , I'm so-- you-- it's been so _long_ \--"  
  
Diego doesn’t know what it means, and he doesn’t even have to think about it because Five answers it himself. He looks at the boy standing in front of him, small hands gripping his shoulders tightly and practically shaking him with pure excitement, and even though he’s confused because he doesn’t necessarily feel impressed with what he did, he still smiles. He already knew he was getting better - his short-term memory had improved, he could walk long distances with no issue, his reading and writing skills were progressing - but he thought he’d already tested all his skills and limits. To learn that there was something _else_ that Diego had to remaster was both daunting and thrilling. 

And Five is proud of him. He doesn’t need his praise, but it makes his heart swell, knowing that he could do something to impress the boy that could already do so much on his own. One of Diego’s hands comes up to rest on Five’s shoulder, squeezing him gently in response as he gives him a lopsided, but heartfelt smile and lets him ramble on.  
  
Drunk and stupid and babbling, Five lets go of Diego's shoulders to pace in front of him. "This means so much, Diego-- this could be the first step towards recovering your memories. You could remember who you are, where you came from-- this is so good for you--"

His hands are shaking, and glowing just ever so faintly blue at the tips, so worked up with excitement that he isn't paying attention. "By this time next year, who knows? You might remember _everything_ \-- you could be back to your old self again. You're already so-- you remind me so much of--" he's speaking too fast, thinking too fast and feeling too fast, he can't get any complete thoughts out, except for how much he feels for the man sitting across from him. He really is so similar to the boy Five knew, on a fundamental and unchangeable level. Even getting his brain scrambled wasn't enough to change who he was, and that affection comes rolling drunkenly out of Five without thinking in the form of a rambling,"God, Diego, I love you so much--"

And only then does he realize he said it out loud, and shame and fear cut through the heady buzz between his ears. He stops moving altogether, frozen on the spot, staring into Diego's surprised face, and he can't stand to see that single black eye anymore. He disappears in a pop of blue light without thinking, teleporting out to the stairwell leading off from the lobby.  
  
Diego blinks and Five is suddenly gone, leaving just a hint of blue light in his wake and it takes everything in the older man to not just panic. This had happened once before - Five disappearing right before his eyes - and Diego’s brain had been far too scrambled to put the pieces together. He distantly remembers an overwhelming feeling of dread, of hysteria, of hopelessness, as he cried on the floor of their shack, but Diego is better now. Even though he feels the panic creep up the back of his throat, he swallows it down and forces himself to think. 

“Five?” he calls out as he pushes himself off the barstool, gripping the corner of the bar tightly as he regains his center of gravity, giving himself a moment to adjust to the feeling of alcohol coursing through his veins, although Five’s disappearing act has already done a pretty decent job at sobering him up. “Five, come on!” He shouts for Five again, his voice echoing back at him through the empty lobby, and Diego frowns as he looks around for any sign of the boy. 

His words replay in his head. _I love you so much_ , he hears Five repeat. He hadn’t even begun processing it, but now Diego can’t focus on it because he’s too busy looking for him. Still, the phrase compels him to search, and he’s determined, even if he has to search every inch of this maze until he finds him. He checks the bedrooms and kitchens with no luck, even going so far as to open every closet and pull back every shower curtain, but he finds neither hide nor hair of the boy. 

It's not until he opens the door that leads to the staircase that he catches a glimpse of him, huddled and bunched up on the landing of the stairs. It was warm in the lobby with all the doors closed and the heater on, but this single door acts as the only barrier between their toasty sanctuary, and the apocalyptic winter raging outside.

And Five is sitting there in nothing but his undershirt and trousers, his arms curled around his knees with his head ducked low in the space between them and his chest. He's visibly shivering, the boy isn't even wearing _socks_. But when Diego takes a single step forward and his boot crunches on the stair, Five's head shoots up to look at him, an expression of panic on his face, and he vanishes again in another flash of blue.

This time Diego hears a second thud from farther up, on the half caved-in and structurally unsound first floor, where the walls are broken so the wind and snow can get through-- and Five without a jacket or shoes. He doesn't care. The panic in his chest combined with drunken irrationality have him running. Running from his only companion and the only person he cares about. He doesn't have a plan, he isn't even thinking, all he wants to do is get away.  
  
The third time that Five disappears in front of his eyes, Diego expects it. The panic has quickly been replaced by worry and as the cold draft from the door settles over him, and he listens to the sounds of Five above him. He doesn't remember enough of the past or his life before the apocalypse to even wonder whether the fact that they have abilities like this is normal or not, and the freedom from those memories spare him from agonizing over the thoughts for very long. He follows, even though he knows that Five might just run from him again, but if he can just talk to him, maybe he can help him. The panicked look on Five’s face had hit Diego hard in the center of his chest and as he cautiously makes his way up the steps, he hopes he doesn’t have to see it again. “Hey, Five...” he calls out again, his voice soft, but the worry in it is clear. 

He spots Five just down the hallway from the door they’d came in through. The wind is stronger up here, howling through the open cracks in the building. Diego’s cold in his single layer of clothes, but he can’t imagine how Five is faring. The boy was usually the one scolding him for not being dressed properly, but Diego doesn’t throw it back at him. Instead, he keeps some distance between them, but extends a hand out to Five. “Just stop running, alright? Everything’s okay.”  
  
"I'm sorry!" Five shouts down the hall, over the wind whipping his dark hair around his face. Even from the other end of the hall, Diego can see he's shivering, his feet bare in inches of snow on the ground. "I didn't mean it!"

He does mean it, and it's probably foolish to even suggest he didn't, since he's now actively running from Diego just for saying it. The panic is like a knife in his chest, the fear of being laughed at, belittled and told how foolish he is for having a crush on a man so much older than him. Diego doesn't know about Five's history with him after all, to him all it'll seem like is an immature little boy with an embarrassing crush.

And Five can't blame him. He doesn't remember the nights they would share, bunched up in one of their beds or the other, whispering and giggling some nights and comforting one another from Reginald's wrath on others. Diego only knows Five as he is now.  
  
Diego shakes his head softly at Five‘s apology, even though it takes him a moment to realize what he’s apologizing for. He didn’t mean to say the words that are still echoing in Diego’s head and _that’s_ why he’s running. Diego just sighs and takes a hesitant step forward into the snow, his arm still outstretched to Five. 

“It’s _alright_ , Five,” he assures him, and if Diego’s being honest, it’s not what he cares about in this moment. He’s more concerned with the fact that Five is standing in the snow with bare feet. “It’s _freezing_ up here,” he continues, still trying to coax Five back towards him, to convince him that he wasn’t bothered, that there was no need to panic. “C’mon, let’s go back downstairs, alright?”  
  
In Five's drunken mind, all he can think is that Diego is trying to coax him over to him to-- to do _what_ , he doesn't know. To yell at him, scold him, maybe even hurt him. He isn't thinking rationally, and worse he _knows_ he's not thinking rationally, but he can't muster the ability to change that.

When Diego advances a step, Five takes one back to match, and then curses as he steps on a piece of broken glass hidden under the snow. The sharp edge slices into his tender foot and he collapses as pain lances up his leg, a bright spot of blood appearing in the stark white snow. He falls to his ass in the drift, bare palms and forearms landing in the powder that clings to him and melts on his skin and clothes. sapping all the heat from his body.

And then he starts to cry. Drunk and in love, in pain and cold, there are too many miserable forces acting on him at once for him to withstand. For all of his strength and competence and courage, he's just one boy-- and right now he's a very _drunk_ boy in a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally.  
  
Diego curses under his breath as Five moves away from him and hurts himself in the process, wondering if he should have just given him the space he seems to want so badly in the first place. He quickly retracts that idea - Five is drunk, upset, and cold, and now he’s _bleeding_ , and Diego can’t just leave him like this. 

He’s _crying_ , too. Diego doesn’t think he’s ever seen Five cry. He’s always so put together, acting years older than he actually is, but here, huddled in the corner in a pile of snow, he looks like the kid that he actually is and Diego never wants to see him cry again. 

He takes the tears as a sign of surrender and he slowly continues towards Five, his socks soaking the instant he steps in the snow. He’s mindful of where he’s stepping, not wanting to end up with a cut like Five’s, until he’s finally right in front of the boy. He’s afraid Five will disappear again, but he lays a broad hand on his shoulder, silently letting him know that he wasn’t going anywhere. “C’mon, kid,” he mumbles, his hands sliding under Five’s arms as he carefully hauls him to his feet. “Let’s get you back downstairs.”  
  
Too weak to protest, Five leans his weight on Diego as he helps him hobble back downstairs, his sliced-open foot elevated off the ground to try and do as little damage to it as possible, though he leaves a trail of blood droplets through the snow and across the concrete and linoleum as Diego helps him back downstairs. 

There are too many thoughts running through him now. This is the end of his time with Diego, he's going to want to part ways with him now-- he'll be disgusted or uncomfortable with Five, or if he isn't he'll at least make fun of him and mock him. Or maybe he'll just _pity_ Five for being a poor, misguided kid, which seems somehow worse than everything else. He doesn't think he could stand the man's pity. 

On top of this horrible pit forming in his stomach, he'd also just confirmed for the man that they both have some kind of supernatural power. Or maybe Diego won't consider it supernatural ability at all, considering he has so few memories of what his life was life, and indeed what all life was like before the apocalypse. Maybe he doesn't even know that humans aren't supposed to have these abilities. He'd also seen the tattoos-- he probably has so many questions now, questions that Five doesn't know how to, or if he even _should_ answer. 

He's deposited on the edge of one of the sofa pieces, his foot still bleeding on the floor from a slash in the meat of the arch-- arguably the most painful place for a cut on the foot, dripping off his heel and onto the ground as Diego fetches their first aid kit, and Five finds that he can't fucking stop _crying_. Maybe it's the alcohol, or maybe it's the pressure of two years of taking care of Diego finally breaking him, or maybe it's just because he's a kid-- but now that the floodgates have opened and he's crying for the first time in almost a year, since the first time Diego spoke, Five can't manage to collect himself enough to _stop._  
  
Diego wordlessly gets to work, using the contents of their overstuffed first aid kit to take care of Five’s foot. He’s watched Five take care of him enough to know what to do in a situation like this. He disinfects the cut, puts some pressure on it to stop the bleeding before he covers it with gauze and wraps a bandage tightly around the arch of his foot. When he’s finished, he slips a pair of warm and dry socks on him. 

Diego sits back to look up at Five, seeing that he hasn’t stopped crying yet, and he frowns, placing a gentle hand on Five’s knee. “Hey, it’s alright,” he murmurs as he pushes himself off the ground, taking a seat on the couch next to the boy. He drapes an arm around him, giving him a reassuring squeeze, even though he’s not sure if he’s making things better or worse.  
  
 _Five_ doesn't know if he's making things better or worse. Just being touched by the man is overwhelming right now, it isn't as though Five has had a lot of touch reciprocated over the last couple years. In fact, all touch between them had almost stopped entirely after Diego started to become mobile, and able to take care of himself. The only time they ever touched anymore was incidental, while helping one another over some rubble or brushing dirt or grime off of each other's backs. 

He doesn't realize until now how much he'd missed the process of cleaning Diego every couple of days, back when he was too weak to move himself. It gave him an excuse to touch another human being, even in innocuous ways. He never knew how desperately skin to skin contact was a need, just as much as food or water, but with Diego's big hand first on his knee and then wrapped around his shoulders-- it just makes him cry harder. 

"I'm s-s-sorry," he gets out between sharp, involuntary gasps between sobs, for once _he's_ the one with the stutter. He doesn't know why he's still apologizing, at this point he thinks it's likely just as much for making a fool of himself by crying so hard in front of the other man as it was for his stupid, ill-timed and drunken confession. "I'm s-so s-sorry--"  
  
Diego definitely thinks he made it worse, if the way that Five has suddenly started crying even harder is any indication. But maybe, he thinks, he’s just letting out everything that’s been building up over the years. It hasn’t been easy on Diego, but at least he can’t remember anything about his life before all this. Five has to carry all that with him, and maybe it finally became too much to bear. He wraps his arm a little tighter around Five, pulling him closer on instinct. Five is upset enough to break Diego’s heart and all he wants to do his hold him until he smiles again. This is what having a brother must be like, he decides, and makes a promise to himself that he’ll do all that he can to never make Five feel like this again. 

"I didn't mean it," Five says again, his teeth chattering between his ragged gasps, as it finally sets in how cold he is, shivering from his sock feet all the way up to his shoulders. "I'm not-- I didn't mean it--"

It sinks in, _really_ sinks in for the other man that the whole reason for his panic, his intense reaction, is just because he'd said he loved Diego. It had nothing to do with the strange abilities or Diego's memories-- all of this was just because he shared an emotion with the man.

What sort of reaction was Five _used to_ for making himself vulnerable, if this is the sort of defensive walls he put up? Truthfully Diego has no way of knowing, but Five is far too young to be this distraught over something as simple as admitting he cares about someone.

"Please don't be mad," Five's teeth continue to chatter and click together. "Please-- please don't be mad at me."  
  
Maybe Diego just can’t comprehend why it’s a big deal for Five to have said that to him. He had to relearn everything and love wasn’t something he was sure about yet. Even so, he didn’t think there was any reason to be crying about it, especially when he’s told Five that it’s alright. He notices that he’s shivering now, how cold and wet his body is finally catching up to his mind. Diego wants to go get him a change of clothes, but he’s afraid now that he’s gotten close to Five, he won’t want him to leave. So, he slides closer and tightens his arm around him, rubbing his arm in an attempt to warm him up until he can get Five some dry clothes and wrap him in a blanket. 

“I’m not mad at you. Promise,” he says earnestly, giving his head a little shake to emphasize it. He glances down at him again as he shivers in his arms and Diego’s attempts to warm him up don’t go very far. “Now, c’mon, you gotta get into some dry clothes.”  
  
Maybe there was something different about the way Diego delivered his promise this time, or maybe he'd just finally said it enough time that it cuts through the drunken fog in his head and makes it to the meat of his brain, but Five finally seems to calm down when Diego suggests a change of subject-- like it's just that easy to move on. Like it doesn't matter, and there are other things Diego is more concerned with. 

Getting a nonreaction to his ill-timed confession wasn't one of the possible reactions Five had been anticipating, but it's better than a bad one. At least, he thinks it is. If Diego is uncomfortable and would just prefer to pretend it didn't happen at all, then Five can pretend it didn't happen either. On some level it's comforting that Diego just wants to get back to business as usual and tend to Five's basic needs-- but on another level, it's just embarrassing. It's supposed to be _his_ job to take care of their needs like this, but right now he's too sloshed to even think about the steps of changing his clothes.

"I don't... think I like drinking," Five mumbles, still gasping slightly between his words as he tries to calm down, tries to follow Diego's lead and pretend everything is normal again, like the last fifteen minutes didn't happen at all.  
  
Diego breathes out a quiet sigh of relief when Five finally starts to calm down. If he’d known that just brushing it off would have worked, he’d have tried it way earlier, but he still didn’t mind sitting here with Five - he just hated seeing him cry. He slowly drops his arm from around Five and stands up, a weak smile tugging at the corner of his mouth at Five’s statement. 

“We don’t have to drink,” he says, holding a hand back out to Five so he can help him up. They’d found ways to pass the time without alcohol before this place and Diego knows they can do it again. He isn’t sure he’s the biggest fan of it either, not liking the way it clouds his already scrambled mind.  
  
Five hops up onto one foot, his other foot still aching as he hobbles after the other man, bracing just the very tippy toes of his injured foot against the tile in order to support himself, but he doesn't let go of Diego's hand as he leads him back over to their nest, where all of their clothes are. Dutifully, if a bit clumsily with drunken fingers, Five pulls off his wet undershirt and changes back into his warmer overshirt, following suit with the pants. 

Feeling exhausted, he just crawls into the little nest they made and collapses onto his side, curled up small, and he blinks up at Diego all bleary and overwhelmed. He just looks at him for a moment, trying to piece through all of the thoughts swirling and disorganized in his head. 

"We're still friends?" he asks in a small, broken-up voice.  
  
Diego turns his back to Five while he changes, giving him the privacy that they don’t often get and takes the opportunity to change out of his own wet socks and put some dry ones on. He turns back when he hears Five climb into the mess of pillows and blankets and he grabs his wet clothes, hanging them to dry off of the back of one of the sofas. 

He looks back at Five when his small voice breaks the already quiet air. He tries not to frown at that question, like the answer isn’t the most obvious thing in the world, but Five is still drunk and upset, so Diego climbs into the nest beside him, close enough so that he can look directly at Five. “Of course we are,” he tells him. He doesn’t need to promise him that they always will be. He knows that deep down they both know that, not just because of their situation, but because they care for each other.  
  
As Diego watches Five slowly fall asleep in front of him, his mind is plagued with questions. Five had spent so much time and energy these last couple years trying to help Diego recover his own memories, that he realizes he doesn't really know a thing about the boy he's lying nearly nose-to-nose with. He doesn't know where he's from, how he grew up, or what kind of home life he had. He knows vaguely that he had _some_ amount of siblings, he's spoken once before about a couple brothers and a sister, but he's never mentioned any of them by name, and he's certainly never talked about a mother or father. 

There's a terrible, dreadful sense that this boy has been alone for a very long time. Even before the apocalypse, there was an old-soul kind of loneliness in him. How sad it is that it would take the end of the world for him to find himself a friend that would never leave him, even if he made a fool of himself, even if he does something he believes so unthinkable as to admit he cares about his friend. 

It's that night, lying side by side with his best friend, that Diego decides he would move mountains for the boy, as if Five himself had not made that promise a hundred times over by now.


End file.
